On 3 November 2006, the then-President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Arkadi Ghukasyan, signed a decree to hold a referendum on a draft Nagorno-Karabakh constitution,[17] it was held on 10 December of the same year[18] and voters overwhelmingly approved the new constitution.[19] According to official preliminary results, with a turnout of 87.2%,[citation needed] as many as 98.6 percent of voters approved the constitution.[18] The First article of the document described the then Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as "a sovereign, democratic legal and social state". More than 100 non-governmental international observers and journalists who monitored the poll evaluated it positively, stating that it was held to a high international standard.[20]

However, the vote was criticised harshly by inter-governmental organisations such as the European Union, OSCE and GUAM, which rejected the referendum, deeming it illegitimate[20][21] The EU announced it was "aware that a 'constitutional referendum' has taken place," but emphasised its stance that only a negotiated settlement between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians could bring a lasting solution.[22]Secretary General of the Council of EuropeTerry Davis asserted that the poll "will not be recognized... and is therefore of no consequence".[20] In a statement, the OSCE chairman in office Karel De Gucht voiced his concern that the vote would prove harmful to the ongoing conflict settlement process, which, he said, had shown "visible progress" and was at a "promising juncture".[18]

The outcome was also criticised by Turkey, which traditionally supports Azerbaijan because of common ethnic Turkic roots, and has historically had severe tensions with Armenia.[23][24]

Another referendum was held on 20 February 2017, with a 87.6% vote in favour on a 76% turnout for instituting a new constitution. This constitution among other changes turned the government from a semi-presidential to a fully presidential model, and changed the official name from the "Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh" to the "Republic of Artsakh"/"Artsakh Republic",[25][26] the new name implies a claim to the areas controlled beyond the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, and the Presidential system allows for quicker decisions on security matters. The referendum is seen as a response to the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh clashes.[27]

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is based in Stepanakert, the Republic of Artsakh operates five permanent Missions and one Bureau of Social-Politic Information in France. Artsakh's Permanent Missions exist in Armenia, Australia, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, and one for Middle East countries based in Beirut,[28] the goals of the offices are to present the Republic's positions on various issues, to provide information and to facilitate the peace process.

In his 2015 speech, the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan stated that he considered Nagorno-Karabakh "an inseparable part of Armenia".[29]

According to the Constitution of Artsakh the army is under the civilian command of the government,[30] the Artsakh Defense Army was officially established on 9 May 1992 as a defense against Azerbaijan. It fought the Azerbaijani army to a ceasefire on 12 May 1994.[31] Currently the Artsakh Defense Army consists of around 18,000–20,000 officers and soldiers. However, only 8,500 citizens from Artsakh serve in the NK army; some 10,000 come from Armenia. There are also 177–316 tanks, 256–324 additional fighting vehicles, and 291–322 guns and mortars. Armenia supplies arms and other military necessities to Artsakh. Several battalions of Armenia's army are deployed directly in the Artsakh zone on occupied Azerbaijani territory.[32]

The Artsakh Defense Army fought in Shusha in 1992, opening the Lachin corridor between The Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh (1992), and staged the defense of the Martakert front from 1992–1994.

The region of Nagorno-Karabakh is considered to be one of the most heavily mined regions of the former Soviet Union. Mines were laid from 1991 to 1994 by both conflicting parties in the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the United Nations and the U.S. have estimated the number of mines in Nagorno-Karabakh at 100,000.[citation needed] There have been many civilian casualties resulting from the land mines, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) claims that 123 people have been killed and over 300 injured by landmines near the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh since a 1994 truce ended a six-year conflict between ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijani forces.[33] The HALO Trust – UK based demining NGO, is the only other organisation conducting demining in Nagorno Karabakh.[34]

Today, Artsakh is a de factoindependent state, calling itself the Republic of Artsakh, it has close relations with the Republic of Armenia and uses the same currency, the dram. According to Human Rights Watch, "from the beginning of the Karabakh conflict, Armenia provided aid, weapons, and volunteers. Armenian involvement in Artsakh escalated after a December 1993 Azerbaijani offensive, the Republic of Armenia began sending conscripts and regular Army and Interior Ministry troops to fight in Artsakh."[35] The politics of Armenia and the de facto Artsakh are so intertwined that a former president of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Robert Kocharyan, first became the prime minister (from 1994 to 1997), and then the President of Armenia (from 1998 to 2008).

However, Armenian governments have repeatedly resisted internal pressure to unite the two, due to ongoing negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group; in his case study of Eurasia, Dov Lynch of the Institute for Security Studies of WEU believes that "Karabakh's independence allows the new Armenian state to avoid the international stigma of aggression, despite the fact that Armenian troops fought in the war between 1991–94 and continue to man the Line of Contact between Karabakh and Azerbaijan." Lynch also cites that the "strength of the Armenian armed forces, and Armenia's strategic alliance with Russia, are seen as key shields protecting the Karabakh state by the authorities in Stepanakert."[36] Some sources consider Artsakh as functioning de facto as part of Armenia.[37][38][39][40][41]

At present, the mediation process is at a standstill, with the most recent discussions in Rambouillet, France, yielding no agreement. Azerbaijan has officially requested Armenian troops to withdraw from all disputed areas of Azerbaijan outside Nagorno-Karabakh, and that all displaced persons be allowed to return to their homes before the status of Karabakh can be discussed.[citation needed] Armenia does not recognise Azerbaijani claims to Nagorno-Karabakh, and believes the territory should have self-determination.[42] Both the Armenian and Artsakhi governments note that the independence of Artsakh was declared around the time the Soviet Union dissolved and its members became independent,[43][44] the Armenian government insists that the government of Artsakh be part of any discussions on the region's future, and rejects ceding occupied territory or allowing refugees to return before talks on the region's status.[45]

Representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, France, Russia and the United States met in Paris and in Key West, Florida, in early 2001,[46] despite rumours that the parties were close to a solution, the Azerbaijani authorities – both during Heydar Aliyev's period of office, and after the accession of his son Ilham Aliyev in the October 2003 elections – have firmly denied that any agreement was reached in Paris or Key West.

Further talks between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents, Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharyan, were held in September 2004 in Astana, Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit. Reportedly, one of the suggestions put forward was the withdrawal of the occupying forces from the Azeri territories adjacent to Artsakh and then holding referendums (plebiscites) in Artsakh and Azerbaijan proper regarding the future status of the region, on 10 and 11 February 2006, Kocharyan and Aliyev met in Rambouillet, France, to discuss the fundamental principles of a settlement to the conflict. Contrary to the initial optimism, the Rambouillet talks did not produce any agreement, with key issues such as the status of Artsakh and whether Armenian troops would withdraw from Kalbajar still being contentious.[47]

Talks were held at the Polish embassy in Bucharest in June 2006.[48] Again, American, Russian, and French diplomats attended the talks that lasted over 40 minutes.[49] Earlier, Armenian President Kocharyan announced that he was ready to "continue dialogue with Azerbaijan for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and with Turkey on establishing relations without any preconditions."[50]

According to Armenian foreign minister, Vardan Oskanyan, no progress was made at this latest meeting. Both presidents failed to reach a consensus on the issues from the earlier Rambouillet conference, he noted that the Kocharyan-Aliyev meeting was held in a normal atmosphere. "Nevertheless," he added, "the foreign ministers of the two countries are commissioned to continue talks over settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and try to find common points before the next meeting of the presidents."[51]

The major disagreement between both sides at the Bucharest conference was the status of Artsakh. Azerbaijan's preferred solution would be to give Artsakh the "highest status of autonomy adopted in the world."[52] Armenia, on the other hand, endorsed a popular vote by the inhabitants of Artsakh to decide their future, a position that was also taken by the[which?] international mediators.[53] On 27 June, the Armenian foreign minister said both parties agreed to allow the residents of Artsakh to vote regarding the future status of the region,[54] the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially refuted that statement.[55] According to Azeri opposition leader Isa Gambar, however, Azerbaijan did indeed agree to the referendum. Still, nothing official has confirmed this yet.[56]

The ongoing "Prague Process" overseen by the OSCE Minsk Group was brought into sharp relief in the summer of 2006 with a series of rare public revelations seemingly designed to jump-start the stalled negotiations, after the release in June of a paper outlining its position, which had until then been carefully guarded, U.S. State Department official Matthew Bryza told Radio Free Europe that the Minsk Group favored a referendum in Karabakh that would determine its final status, the referendum, in the view of the OSCE, should take place not in Azerbaijan as a whole, but in Artsakh only. This was a blow to Azerbaijan, and despite talk that their government might eventually seek a more sympathetic forum for future negotiations, this has not yet happened.[57]

On 10 December 2007 Azerbaijan's deputy foreign minister said Azerbaijan would be prepared to conduct anti-terrorist operations in Nagorno-Karabakh against alleged bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).[58] Armenian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Vladimir Karapetian previously rejected the allegations as "fabricated" and suggested the accusations of the PKK presence were a form of provocation.[59]

In 2008, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev stated that "Nagorno-Karabakh will never be independent; the position is backed by international mediators as well; Armenia has to accept the reality" and that "in 1918, Yerevan was granted to the Armenians. It was a great mistake, the khanate of Iravan was the Azeri territory, the Armenians were guests here".[60] On the other hand, in 2009, the president of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakyan declared that "Artsakh will never be a part of Azerbaijan. Artsakh security should never be an article of commerce either, as to other issues, we are ready to discuss them with Azerbaijan.".[61] In 2010 president of Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in his speech in the Chatham House of the British Royal Institute of International Affairs declared that "Karabakh was never a part of independent Azerbaijan: it was annexed to Azerbaijan by a decision of the Soviet Union party body, the people of Karabakh never put up with this decision, and upon the first opportunity, seceded from the Soviet Union fully in line with the laws of the Soviet Union and the applicable international law".[62]

On 14 March 2008, the United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution by a vote of 39 to 7, with 100 abstentions, reaffirming Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, expressing support for that country's internationally recognised borders and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories there, the resolution was supported mainly by members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and GUAM, Azerbaijan is a member in both groups, as well as other nations facing breakaway regions. The resolution was opposed by all three members of the OSCE Minsk Group.[63]

On 20 May 2010, the European Parliament adopted a resolution "on the need for an EU strategy for the South Caucasus", which states that EU must pursue a strategy to promote stability, prosperity and conflict resolution in the South Caucasus,[64] the resolution "calls on the parties to intensify their peace talk efforts for the purpose of a settlement in the coming months, to show a more constructive attitude and to abandon preferences to perpetuate the status quo created by force and with no international legitimacy, creating in this way instability and prolonging the suffering of the war-affected populations; condemns the idea of a military solution and the heavy consequences of military force already used, and calls on both parties to avoid any further breaches of the 1994 ceasefire". The resolution also calls for withdrawal of Armenian forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan, accompanied by deployment of international forces to be organised with respect of the UN Charter in order to provide the necessary security guarantees in a period of transition, which will ensure the security of the population of Artsakh and allow the displaced persons to return to their homes and further conflicts caused by homelessness to be prevented; and states that the EU believes that the position according to which Artsakh includes all occupied Azerbaijani lands surrounding Artsakh should rapidly be abandoned. It also notes "that an interim status for Nagorno-Karabakh could offer a solution until the final status is determined and that it could create a transitional framework for peaceful coexistence and cooperation of Armenian and Azerbaijani populations in the region."[65]

On 26 June 2010, the presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group's Co-Chair countries, France, Russia, and United States made a joint statement, reaffirming their "commitment to support the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan as they finalize the Basic Principles for the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict".[66]

After Armenia established diplomatic relations with Tuvalu in March 2012, it was speculated in the press that Armenia was attempting to persuade the small island nation to be the first state to recognise Artsakh's independence.[67] Tuvalu recognised two other disputed states in the Caucasus, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the previous year.

No UN member states have recognised Artsakh, although some other unrecognised states have done so. Various sub-national administrations have issued calls for recognition of Artsakh by their national governments.

In May 2012, the Rhode Island House of Representatives in the United States passed a resolution calling on President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress to recognise Republic of Artsakh. The resolution, adopted by the state's House of Representatives, encourages Artsakh's "efforts to develop as a free and independent nation."[68]

On October 24, 2012, the Legislative Council of Australia’s New South Wales Parliament adopted a resolution recognising the Republic of Artsakh and the right to self-determination of its Armenian people. The motion acknowledges the 20th anniversary of independence for the Republic of Artsakh, it supports the right to self-determination of its people, and it “calls on the Commonwealth Government [of Australia] to officially recognise the independence of the Republic of Artsakh and strengthen Australia’s relationship with the Artsakh and its citizens”.[70]

In May 2013, the Louisiana State Senate in the United States passed a resolution accepting Artsakh's independence and expressed support for the Artsakh Republic's efforts to develop as a free and independent nation.[74]

In May 2014, the Louisiana State Senate adopted a resolution saluting the Artsakh Republic’s independence and urging the U.S. President and Congress to "Support Self-Determination and Democratic Independence of the Artsakh Republic".[79]

On 27 August 2014, the California State Senate voted unanimously (23-0) to pass Assembly Joint Resolution 32, recognising the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh as a sovereign state. The resolution encourages Artsakh’s efforts to develop as a free and independent nation and formally calls upon the President and Congress of the United States to support the self-determination and democratic independence of the Artsakh Republic.[80][81]

On 3 March 2016, Georgia became the sixth state of the U.S. to recognize the independence of Artsakh.[82]

On 30 March 2016, Hawaii became the seventh state to unanimously recognize Artsakh, the Hawaii House of Representatives placed bill H.R. 167 into effect despite pressure from Azerbaijani diplomats and Washington D.C.[83]

On 30 March 2016, the US Embassy in Azerbaijan issued a declaration that US foreign state policy is determined at a federal government level, and that the United States does not recognize the Artsakh Republic.[84] This statement was delivered shortly after Azerbaijan's president, president Ilham Aliyev, arrived in Washington D.C for bilateral discussions.

On 5 May 2016 the Government of Armenia approved the bill on recognition of the independence of the Republic of Artsakh. It was announced, that the recognition of the independence of the Artsakh Republic is "due to the results of discussions between Armenia and Artsakh, [and] considering further developments, including external factors.”[85]

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has resulted in the displacement of 528,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenian territories[citation needed] (this figure does not include new born children of these IDPs) including Artsakh, and 220,000 Azeris, 18,000 Kurds and 3,500 Russians fled from Armenia to Azerbaijan from 1988 to 1989. The Azerbaijani government has estimated that 63 percent of internally displaced persons (IDPs) lived below the poverty line as compared to 49% of the total population. About 154,000 lived in the capital, Baku. According to the International Organization for Migration, 40,000 IDPs lived in camps, 60,000 in underground dugout shelters, and 20,000 in railway cars. Forty-thousand IDPs lived in EU-funded settlements and UNHCR provided housing for another 40,000. Another 5,000 IDPs lived in abandoned or rapidly deteriorating schools. Others lived in trains, on roadsides in half-constructed buildings, or in public buildings such as tourist and health facilities. Tens of thousands lived in seven tent camps where poor water supply and sanitation caused gastro-intestinal infections, tuberculosis, and malaria.[86]

The government required IDPs to register their place of residence in an attempt to better target the limited and largely inadequate national and international assistance due to the Armenian advocated and US imposed restrictions on humanitarian aid to Azerbaijan. Many IDPs were from rural areas and found it difficult to integrate into the urban labor market. Many international humanitarian agencies reduced or ceased assistance for IDPs citing increasing oil revenues of the country,[87] the infant mortality among displaced Azerbaijani children is 3–4 times higher than in the rest of the population. The rate of stillbirth was 88.2 per 1,000 births among the internally displaced people. The majority of the displaced have lived in difficult conditions for more than 13 years.[88]

280,000 persons—virtually all ethnic Armenians who fled Azerbaijan during the 1988–1993 war over the disputed region of Artsakh—were living in refugee-like circumstances in Armenia.[89] Some left the country, principally to Russia, their children born in Armenia acquire citizenship automatically. Their numbers are thus subject to constant decline due to departure, and de-registration required for naturalization. Of these, about 250,000 fled Azerbaijan-proper (areas outside Nagorno-Karabakh); approximately 30,000 came from Nagorno-Karabakh. All were registered with the government as refugees at year's end.[89]

The Artsakh Republic is mountainous, a feature which has given it its name (from the Russian for "Mountainous/Highland Karabakh"), it is 11,500 km2 (4,440 sq mi) in area, bordering Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. The highest peaks in the country are Mount Mrav, 3,340 metres (10,958 ft), and Mount Kirs 2,725 metres (8,940 ft). The largest water body is the Sarsang reservoir, and the major rivers are the Terter and Khachen rivers.[90] The country is on a plateau which slopes downwards towards the east and southeast, with the average altitude being 3,600 ft (1,097 m) above sea level. Most rivers in the country flow towards the Artsakh valley.[91]

The climate is mild and temperate, the average temperature is 11 °C (52 °F), which fluctuates annually between 22 °C (72 °F) in July and −1 °C (30 °F) in January. The average precipitation can reach 71 cm (28 in) in some regions, and it is foggy for over 100 days a year.[91]

Over 2,000 kinds of plants exist in Artsakh, and more than 36% of the country is forested, the plant life on the steppes is mostly semi-desert vegetation, and alpine and tundra environments[clarification needed] can be found above the forest in the highlands and mountains.[91]

The Republic of Artsakh has eight administrative divisions, their territories include the five districts of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), the Shahumyan Region in the Azerbaijan SSR which is currently under Azerbaijani control, and the seven districts around the former NKAO that are under the control of the Artsakhi forces.

Following the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's declaration of independence, the Azerbaijani government abolished the NKAO and created Azerbaijani districts in its place, as a result, some of the Republic of Artsakh's divisions correspond with the Azerbaijani districts, while others have different borders. A comparative table of the current divisions of Artsakh and the corresponding districts of Azerbaijan follows:[92]

The Republic of Artsakh claims Shahumian, which was not part of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Representatives from Shahumian declared independence along with Artsakh, and the proclamation of Artsakh includes the Shahumian region within its borders.[94] Unlike the rest of Artsakh, Shahumian remains under Azerbaijani control.

In 2002, the country's population was 145,000, made up of 95% Armenians and 5% others.[90][dubious– discuss] In March 2007, the local government announced that its population had grown to 138,000, the annual birth rate was recorded at 2,200–2,300 per year, an increase from nearly 1,500 in 1999.

OSCE report, released in March 2011, estimates the population of the "seven occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh" to be 14,000, and states "there has been no significant growth in the population since 2005."[95][96]

Until 2000, the country's net migration was at a negative,[97] for the first half of 2007, 1,010 births and 659 deaths were reported, with a net emigration of 27.[98]

According to age group: 15,700 (0–6), 25,200 (7–17) 75,800 (18–59) and 21,000 (60+)

The Gandzasar monastery ("Գանձասար" in Armenian) is a historical monastery in Artsakh. Another is Dadivank Monastery (Armenian: Դադիվանք) also Khutavank (Armenian: Խութավանք – Monastery on the Hill) that was built between the 9th and 13th century. Artsakhi government's aim is to include the Gandzasar Monastery into the directory of the UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.

Just uphill from the cathedral in Shushi is the Kanach Zham (Green Church in Armenian) built in 1847.

Amaras Monastery (4th century) was a monastery was established by the foremost Armenian saint, St. Gregory the Enlightener, who baptized Armenia into the world's first Christian state in 301 AD. Amaras also hosted the first school where St. Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet, taught the new script to pupils, in the 5th century. The Amaras Monastery's location is in the Martuni District.

Saint Yeghishe Arakyal Monastery (5th–13th centuries) commemorating St. Yeghishe, the famous evangelizer of Armenia's eastern lands, the church serves as a burial ground for the 5th century's King Vachagan II the Pious, the most well-known representative of the Arranshahik line of east Armenian monarchs. The monastery is located in the Martakert District.

Dadivank Monastery (13th century) is one of the most architecturally and culturally significant Monasteries in Artsakh. The western façade of Dadivank's Memorial Cathedral bears one of the most extensive Armenian lapidary (inscribed-in-stone) texts, and has one of the largest collection of Medieval Armenian frescoes. Dadivank is named after St. Dadi, a disciple of Apostle Thaddeus who preached the Holy Gospel in Artsakh in the 1st century. St. Dadi's tomb was later discovered by archeologists in 2007, the monastery is in the Shahumian District.

Gtichavank Monastery (13th century) has design features shared with the architectural style of medieval Armenia's capital city of Ani. The monastery is located in the Hadrut District.

Bri Yeghtze Monastery (13th century) that centers on embedded khachkars, unique-to-Armenia stone memorials with engraved crosses, the monastery is located in the Martuni District.

Yerits Mankants Monastery (17th century) (meaning "three infants" in Armenian) is known for hosting the seat of Artsakh's rival clergy to that of the Holy See of Gandzasar. The monastery is located in the Martakert District.

Following the ceasefire, the Stepanakert-based administration launched various programs aimed at bringing in permanent Armenian settlers to the depopulated lands, including into regions previously populated by Azeris, with those that bordered Armenia – Lachin and Kalbajar – being the priority.[102] Incentives in the form of free housing, access to property, social infrastructure, inexpensive or sometimes free electricity, running water, low taxes or limited tax exemptions were offered to new settlers.

Azerbaijan regards this as a violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Armenia became party in 1993, whereby "[t]he Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies",[103] the ruling party of Azerbaijan accuses the Armenian side of artificially changing the demographic situation and the ethnic composition of the occupied region so that it can lay future claims to them, comparing this to the 1950s campaign of resettling diaspora Armenians in previously Azeri-populated locales in Soviet Armenia where Azeris were forcibly deported from in 1948–1950.[104]

In 1979, the total Armenian population of the districts of Kalbajar, Lachin, Qubadli, Zangilan, Jabrayil, Fuzuli and Agdam was around 1,400 people.[105] An OSCE fact-finding mission established at Azerbaijan's request visited these regions in February 2005 with the intention to assess the scale of the settlement attempts, the mission's findings showed that these districts had as of 2005 an overall population of 14,000 persons, mostly living in precarious social conditions. It consisted primarily of ethnic Armenians displaced from non-conflict zones of Azerbaijan during the war, it was noted, however, that most of them had settled in the conflict zone after having lived in Armenia for several years and some held Armenian passports and even voted in Armenian elections. A smaller segment of the settlers were originally from the towns of Gyumri and Spitak in Armenia who had lived in temporary shelters following the devastating 1988 earthquake before moving to Karabakh, as well as a small number of natives of Yerevan who moved there for financial reasons.[106] A field assessment mission revisited the region in October 2010, confirming that there had not been much growth in population or change in living conditions of the settlers,[107] the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group who visited Artsakh, Kalbajar and Lachin in 2014 reported seeing signs of improvements in infrastructure, but could not observe any indications that the size of the population had changed in recent years.[108]

By June 2015, an estimated 17,000 of Syria's once 80,000-strong Armenian population had fled the civil war and sought refuge in Armenia.[109]David Babayan, spokesperson of the Artsakhi leader Bako Sahakyan, confirmed that some of those refugees had been resettled in Artsakh.[110]The Economist put the number of the resettled families at 30 as of June 2017.[111] In December 2014, Armenian media cited local municipal authorities in stating that dozens of Syrian Armenian families had been resettled in the disputed zone, in particular in the city of Lachin and the village of Xanlıq in Qubadli.[112] Azerbaijan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Elmar Mammadyarov expressed his concern over Armenia's attempts to change the demographic situation in the region and informed of his intention to raise this issue with the Minsk Group.[113]

The socio-economic situation of the Republic of Artsakh was greatly affected by the conflict. Yet, foreign investments are beginning to come, the origin of most venture capital comes from Armenians in Armenia, Russia, United States, France, Australia, Iran, and the Middle East.

Notably the telecommunications sector was developed with Karabakh Telecom[114] investing millions of dollars in mobile telephony, spearheaded by a Lebanese company.

Copper and gold mining has been advancing since 2002 with development and launch of operations at Drmbon deposit.[115] Approximately 27–28 thousand tons (wet weight) of concentrates are produced[116] with average copper content of 19–21% and gold content of 32–34 g/t.[117]

The banking system is administered by Artsakhbank (the state bank) and a number of Armenian banks, the republic uses the Armenian dram.

Wine growing and processing of agricultural products, particularly wine (i.e., storage of wine, wine stuff, cognac alcohol) is one of the prioritized directions of the economic development.[118]

The republic is developing a tourist industry geared to Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, the republic has been showing a major increase in tourists over the last several years, which keeps growing because of Artsakh's many cultural sights. There are currently nine[119] hotels in Stepanakert, the Artsakh development agency says 4,000 tourists visited Artsakh in 2005. The figures rose to 8,000 in 2010 (excluding visitors from Armenia),[120] the agency cooperates with the Armenia Tourism Development Agency (ATDA) as Armenia is the only way tourists (mainly Armenians) can access Artsakh. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Artsakh informs of continuous expansion visitors' geography.[121]

The Tourism Development Agency of Artsakh was established in Yerevan as a non-governmental organisation in the Republic of Armenia to promote tourism further in Artsakh, it makes preparations for tour operators, travel agencies and journalists covering the region, and arranges for hotel services, shopping, catering, recreation centers.

The ancient city of Tigranakert, one of four cities that were founded in the 1st century BC in opposite corners of Armenia and named after King Tigran II the Great, ruler of the short-lived Armenian Empire. Tigranakert, which has been undergoing archaeological excavations since 2005, is located in Mardakert District.

Fort Mayraberd (10th–18th centuries) served as the primary bulwark against Turko-nomadic incursions from the eastern steppe. The fort is found to the east of the region's capital city of Stepanakert.

Govharagha Mosque (18th century), a mosque located in the city of Shushi.

Janapar is a marked trail through mountains, valleys and villages of Artsakh, with monasteries and fortresses along the way. The trail is broken into day hikes, which will bring tourists to a different village each night,[122] the paths have existed for centuries, but now are marked specifically for hikers. The Himnakan Janapar (backbone trail), marked in 2007, leads from the northwest region of Shahumian to the southern town of Hadrut. Side trails and mini trails take one to additional parts of Artsakh, the important sites passed along this hike include Dadivank Monastery, Gandzasar monastery, Shushi, the Karkar Canyon with its high cliffs, Zontik Waterfall and the ruins of Hunot and Gtichavank monastery.

Cost of staying in Artsakh is relatively cheaper in comparison with the region itself and varies approximately between 25 - 70 USD for a single person as of May, 2017.[123] However, for those who travelled Artsakh cannot enter Azerbaijan as the country does not recognize Artsakh as a de facto state.

The transportation system damaged by the conflict has been noticeably improved during the last several years: the North-South Artsakh motorway alone has largely facilitated in the development of the transportation system.[124]

The 169 kilometres (105 mi) Hadrut-Stepanakert-Askeran-Martakert motorway, the locals say, is the lifeline of Artsakh. $25 million donated during the Hayastan All-Armenian Foundation telethons have been allotted for the construction of the road.[124][125]

The route from the Armenian capital Yerevan to Stepanakert is estimated to be reduced from the current 8–9 hours drive once major infrastructures are realized.[126]

Stepanakert Airport, the sole civilian airport of the Republic of Artsakh, located about 8 kilometres (5 miles) east of the capital, has been closed since the onset of the war more than twenty years ago. However, the government was pressing ahead with plans to reopen the airport as of early 2011, and raised about 1 billion drams ($2.8 million) for its reconstruction from unspecified "charitable sources." It began building a new airport terminal and repairing the runway in late 2009. In any case, its unresolved status makes direct air communication with other countries all but impossible according to IATA conventions.[127] Though originally scheduled to launch the first commercial flights on 9 May 2011, Artsakh officials postponed a new reopening date throughout the whole of 2011;[128] in May 2012, the director of the Artsakh Civil Aviation Administration, Tigran Gabrielyan, announced that the airport would begin operations in mid-2012.[129] However the airport still remains closed due to political reasons.

Education in Artsakh is compulsory, and is free up to the age of 18, the education system is inherited from the old system of the Soviet Union.[130]

Artsakh's school system was severely damaged because of the conflict, but the government of the Republic of Artsakh with considerable aid from the Republic of Armenia and donations from the Armenian diaspora has rebuilt many of the schools. The republic has around 250 schools of various sizes, with more than 200 lying in the regions, the student population estimated at more than 20,000 study, with almost half in the capital city of Stepanakert.

Artsakh State University was founded by Artsakh and Armenian governments' joint efforts, with main campus in Stepanakert. The university opening ceremony took place on 10 May 1992.

Artsakh State Museum is the historical museum of the Republic of Artsakh. Located at 4 Sasunstsi David Street, in Stepanakert, the museum offers an assortment of ancient artifacts and Christian manuscripts. There are also more recent items, ranging in date from the 19th century to World War II and from events of the Karabakh Independence War.

Artsakh has its own brand of popular music, as Artsakh question became a pan-Armenian question, Artsakh music was further promoted worldwide.

Many nationalist songs, performed by Artsakhi artists, as well as artists from Republic of Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, show support for the Artsakh independence movement; videos for the songs incorporate footage of Artsakhi military campaigns. These videos are posted to sites such as YouTube, where they often generate conflicting nationalist Armenian and Azerbaijani comments.

Sports in the Republic of Artsakh are organised by the Artsakh Ministry of Culture and Youth. Due to the non-recognition of Artsakh, sports teams from the country cannot compete in most international tournaments.

Football is the most popular sport in Artsakh. Stepanakert has a well-built football stadium. Since the mid-1990s, football teams from Artsakh started taking part in some domestic competitions in the Republic of Armenia, the Lernayin Artsakh represents the city of Stepanakert. The Artsakh football league was launched in 2009, the Artsakh national football team was formed in 2012 and played their first competitive match against the Abkhazia national football team in Sokhumi, a match that ended with a result of 1–1 draw.[132][133] The return match between the unrecognized teams took place at the Stepanakert Stadium, on 21 October 2012, when the team from Artsakh defeated the Abkhazian team 3–0.

There is also interest in other sports, including basketball and volleyball. Sailing is practiced in the town of Martakert.

Artsakh sports teams and athletes also participate in the Pan-Armenian Games organised in the Republic of Armenia.

^Hughes, James (2002). Ethnicity and Territory in the Former Soviet Union: Regions in Conflict. London: Cass. p. 211. ISBN978-0-7146-8210-5. Indeed, Nagorno-Karabakh is de facto part of Armenia.

^Cornell, Svante (2011). Azerbaijan Since Independence. New York: M.E. Sharpe. p. 135. ISBN978-0-7656-3004-9. Following the war, the territories that fell under Armenian control, in particular Mountainous Karabakh itself, were slowly integrated into Armenia. Officially, Karabakh and Armenia remain separate political entities, but for most practical matters the two entities are unified.

^Hughes, James (2002). Ethnicity and Territory in the Former Soviet Union: Regions in Conflict (1. publ. ed.). London: Cass. p. 211. ISBN9780714682105. Indeed, Nagomo- Karabakh is de facto part of Armenia.

^Central Asia and The Caucasus, Information and Analytical Center, 2009, Issues 55–60, Page 74, "Nagorno-Karabakh became de facto part of Armenia (its quasi-statehood can dupe no one) as a result of aggression."

^Cornell, Svante (2011). Azerbaijan Since Independence. New York: M.E. Sharpe. p. 135. ISBN9780765630049. Following the war, the territories that fell under Armenian control, in particular Mountainous Karabakh itself, were slowly integrated into Armenia. Officially, Karabakh and Armenia remain separate political entities, but for most practical matters the two entities are unified.

^"Nagorno-Karabakh". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia. Retrieved 15 November 2013.

1.
Nagorno-Karabakh
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Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains. The region is mountainous and forested. Azerbaijan has not exercised political authority over the region since the advent of the Karabakh movement in 1988, the region is usually equated with the administrative borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast comprising an area of 4,400 square kilometres. The historical area of the region, however, encompasses approximately 8,223 square kilometres, the prefix Nagorno- derives from the Russian attributive adjective nagorny, which means highland. The Azerbaijani names of the include the similar adjectives dağlıq or yuxarı. Such words are not used in the Armenian name, but they have appeared in the name of the region during the Soviet era as Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Other languages apply their own wording for mountainous, upper, or highland, for example, the name Karabakh comprises two words, kara and bagh. Thus Karabakh literally means black garden, the name first appears in Georgian and Persian sources of the 13th and 14th centuries. Karabagh, an alternate spelling of Karabakh, denotes a kind of patterned rug originally produced in the area. Urartian inscriptions use the name Urtekhini for the region, ancient Greek sources called the area Orkhistene. Nagorno-Karabakh falls within the occupied by peoples known to modern archaeologists as the Kura-Araxes culture. The ancient population of the region consisted of various autochthonous local, according to the prevailing western theory, these natives intermarried with Armenians who came to the region after its inclusion into Armenia in the 2nd or, possibly earlier, in 4th century BC. Other scholars suggest that the Armenians settled in the region as early as in the 7th century BC, in around 180 BC, Artsakh became one of the 15 provinces of the Armenian Kingdom and remained so until the 4th century. While formally having the status of a province, Artsakh possibly formed a principality on its own — like Armenias province of Syunik, other theories suggest that Artsakh was a royal land, belonging to the King of Armenia directly. Tigran the Great, King of Armenia, founded in Artsakh one of four cities named Tigranakert after himself, the ruins of the ancient Tigranakert, located 30 miles north-east of Stepanakert, are being studied by a group of international scholars. At the time the population of Artsakh and Utik consisted of Armenians, Armenian culture and civilization flourished in the early medieval Nagorno-Karabakh. St. Mesrop was very active in preaching Gospel in Artsakh, overall, Mesrop Mashtots made three trips to Artsakh and Utik, ultimately reaching pagan territories at the foothills of the Greater Caucasus. The 7th-century Armenian linguist and grammarian Stephanos Syunetsi stated in his work that Armenians of Artsakh had their own dialect, and encouraged his readers to learn it

Nagorno-Karabakh
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Snow-covered Lesser Caucasus south of the Greater Caucasus. About 1800 the eastern side of the Lesser Caucasus was ruled by the Ganja Khanate in the north and the Karabagh Khanate in the south. The Karabagh Khanate extended east into the lowlands, hence the name Nagorno- or Highland- Karabagh.
Nagorno-Karabakh
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Location and extent of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (lighter color).
Nagorno-Karabakh
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The Amaras Monastery, founded in the 4th century by St. Gregory the Illuminator. In the 5th century, Mesrop Mashtots, inventor of the Armenian alphabet, established at Amaras the first school to use his script.
Nagorno-Karabakh
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The monastery at Gandzasar was commissioned by the House of Khachen and completed in 1238

2.
List of states with limited recognition
–
A number of polities have declared independence and sought diplomatic recognition from the international community as de jure sovereign states, but have not been universally recognized as such. These entities often have de facto control of their territory, a number of such entities have existed in the past. There are two traditional doctrines that provide indicia of how a de jure sovereign state comes into being, according to declarative theory, an entitys statehood is independent of its recognition by other states. By contrast, the constitutive theory defines a state as a person of international law if it is recognised as such by other states that are already a member of the international community. Proto-states often reference either or both doctrines in order to legitimise their claims to statehood, there are, for example, entities which meet the declarative criteria, but whose statehood is not recognised by any other states. Non-recognition is often a result of conflicts with other countries that claim those entities as integral parts of their territory, in other cases, two or more partially recognised entities may claim the same territorial area, with each of them de facto in control of a portion of it. Entities that are recognised by only a minority of the worlds states usually reference the declarative doctrine to legitimise their claims, the international community can judge this military presence too intrusive, reducing the entity to a puppet state where effective sovereignty is retained by the foreign power. Historical cases in this sense can be seen in Japanese-led Manchukuo or the German-created Slovak Republic and Independent State of Croatia before, in the 1996 case Loizidou vs. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights judged Turkey for having exercised authority in the territory of Northern Cyprus. Historically this has happened in the case of the Holy See, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta is currently in this position. See list of governments in exile for unrecognised governments without control over the territory claimed, some states are slow to establish relations with new states and thus do not recognise them, despite having no dispute and sometimes favorable relations. These are excluded from the list, there are 193 United Nations member states. The Holy See and the State of Palestine have observer status in the United Nations. Some states maintain informal relations with states that do not officially recognise them, the Republic of China is one such state, as it maintains unofficial relations with many other states through its Economic and Cultural Offices, which allow regular consular services. This allows the ROC to have economic relations even with states that do not formally recognise it, a total of 56 states, including Germany, Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom, maintain some form of unofficial mission in the ROC. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a sovereign entity and is not included. It has established full diplomatic relations with 105 sovereign states as a subject of international law. Five more states maintain neither and do not recognise its passports, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, uncontacted peoples who either live in societies that cannot be defined as states or whose statuses as such are not definitively known. Entities considered to be micronations are not included, even though micronations generally claim to be sovereign and independent, it is often up to debate whether a micronation truly controls its claimed territory

List of states with limited recognition
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Women in Somaliland, wearing the colors of the Somaliland flag.

3.
Unitary state
–
The majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. Of the 193 UN member states,165 of them are governed as unitary states, unitary states are contrasted with federal states. In a unitary state, sub-national units are created and abolished, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an example of a unitary state. Many unitary states have no areas possessing a degree of autonomy, in such countries, sub-national regions cannot decide their own laws. Examples are the Republic of Ireland and the Kingdom of Norway, in federal states, the sub-national governments share powers with the central government as equal actors through a written constitution, to which the consent of both is required to make amendments. This means that the units have a right of existence. The United States of America is an example of a federal state, under the U. S. Constitution, powers are shared between the federal government and the states

Unitary state
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Unitary states

4.
Ashot Ghulian
–
Ashot Ghulian is the Speaker of the Nagorno-Karabakh legislature. He was born on 19 August 1965 in the Khndzristan village, in 1983, Ghulian attended the Stepanakert Pedagogical Institute for Historical Studies. From 1984 to 1986, he served in the Soviet Army, Ghulian graduated from the faculty of the Department of Vanadzor Pedagogical Institute in Stepanakert in 1990. He taught at the Khndzristan high school and participated in village self-defense forces from 1991 to 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, on 1 December 1992, Ghulian joined the convocation of the Supreme Council for Foreign Relations Committee, becoming a senior adviser in 1993. In September, he became the Assistant of the Supreme Council to the President and he led the bilateral relations section of the Nagorno-Karabakh Foreign Ministry beginning in January 1995, and the political administration beginning in January 1998. Ghulian was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs on 15 December 1998 and he left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 2001, and the Democratic Party of Artsakh elected him chair of the social and political organization. On October 2002, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ghulian was elected president of the Central Council of the Democratic Party of Artsakh in January 2005. At the first plenary session of the National Assembly on 30 June 2005, the Artsakh Democratic Party represented by him came in second at the Nagorno-Karabakh parliamentary election,2010, behind the Free Motherland party. Ghulian has made visits to the United States to lobby for support. He has been awarded the Order of St. Gregory the Illuminator

Ashot Ghulian
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Ashot Ghulian Աշոտ Ղուլյան

5.
Arayik Harutyunyan
–
Arayik Harutyunyan is the current Prime Minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. He was suggested by the President of Nagorno-Karabakh Bako Sahakyan and was approved by the Parliament of Karabakh on 14 September 2007. He studied at Yerevan State Institute of Economy, then completed studies at Artsakh State University. Arayik Harutyunyan started his working as a bank manager in one of the branches of Armenian banks in Stepanakert. Later on he co-managed a number of enterprises including Karabakh Gold factory. His first participation in the political life started in 2004 when he supported one of the candidates in the elections of Mayor of Stepanakert, during the parliamentary elections in Nagorno Karabakh in June 2005 Arayik Harutyunyan created ‘Free Motherland’ Party. The party consisted of the businessmen of Karabakh won 10 out of 33 seats in the parliament. In newly elected parliament Arayik Harutyunyan headed the commission on financial, budget and his first speech as a Prime Minister was full of promises to revive the economy, democracy and social justice in the country. The urgent steps that the new Prime Minister promised to take, included ‘fight against the corruption, protectionism, clan system, elections in Nagorno Karabakh Prime Minister of Nagorno Karabakh

Arayik Harutyunyan
–
Arayik Harutyunyan Արայիկ Հարությունյան

6.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states

7.
Gross domestic product
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices

8.
List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita
–
The gross domestic product per capita figures on this page are derived from PPP calculations. Such calculations are prepared by various organizations, including the International Monetary Fund and this is why GDP per capita is often considered one of the indicators of a countrys standard of living, although this can be problematic because GDP per capita is not a measure of personal income. Several economies which are not considered to be sovereign states are included in the list because they appear in the sources and these economies are not ranked in the following tables, but are listed in sequence for comparison. Non-sovereign entities, former countries or other groupings are marked in italics. All figures are in current Geary–Khamis dollars, more known as international dollars

List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita

9.
Armenian dram
–
The dram is the monetary unit of Armenia. It is subdivided into 100 luma, the word dram translates into English as money and is cognate with the Greek drachma and the Arabic dirham. The first instance of a currency was in the period from 1199 to 1375. On 21 September 1991, a referendum proclaimed Armenia as an independent republic from the Soviet Union. The Central Bank of Armenia, established on 27 March 1993, was given the right of issuing the national currency. In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union attempts were made to maintain a common currency among CIS states, however it soon became clear that maintaining a currency union in the unstable political and economical circumstances of the post-Soviet states would be very difficult. The rublezone effectively collapsed with the monetary reform in Russia,1993. As result the states that were still participating were pushed out, Armenia was one of the last countries to do so when it introduced the dram on 22 November 1993. In 1995 the currency sign for the Armenian dram was designed. The Armenian dram sign is the sign of the Armenian dram. In Unicode, it is encoded at U+058F ֏ ARMENIAN DRAM SIGN, after its proclamation of independence, Armenia put into circulation its own national currency – Armenian Dram, the usage of which revealed the necessity for a monetary sign. As the result of business practice and the unique pattern of Armenian letters the shape of the sign. Since that time and until the endorsement of the sign a number of artists. Now the Sign is present in the Armenian standard for the characters and symbols. The Armenian dram is also used in the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a separate currency, the Nagorno-Karabakh dram, which circulates together with the Armenian dram was introduced during 2005. Coins and banknotes ranging in nominal values from 50 luma to 10 dram were issued, officially the Nagorno-Karabakh dram is legal tender in both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. In practice it is mostly sold as souvenirs due to the low nominal values of the coins. In 1994, a first series of coins was introduced in denominations of 10,20 and 50 luma,1,3,5 and 10 dram. In 2003 and 2004, a series consisting of 10,20,50,100,200 and 500 dram coins was introduced to replace the first series

10.
Coordinated Universal Time
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Coordinated Universal Time, abbreviated to UTC, is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean time at 0° longitude. It is one of closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, the first Coordinated Universal Time was informally adopted on 1 January 1960. This change also adopted leap seconds to simplify future adjustments, a number of proposals have been made to replace UTC with a new system that would eliminate leap seconds, but no consensus has yet been reached. Leap seconds are inserted as necessary to keep UTC within 0.9 seconds of universal time, see the Current number of leap seconds section for the number of leap seconds inserted to date. The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC and this abbreviation arose from a desire by the International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union to use the same abbreviation in all languages. English speakers originally proposed CUT, while French speakers proposed TUC, the compromise that emerged was UTC, which conforms to the pattern for the abbreviations of the variants of Universal Time. Time zones around the world are expressed using positive or negative offsets from UTC, the westernmost time zone uses UTC−12, being twelve hours behind UTC, the easternmost time zone, theoretically, uses UTC+12, being twelve hours ahead of UTC. In 1995, the nation of Kiribati moved those of its atolls in the Line Islands from UTC-10 to UTC+14 so that the country would all be on the same day. UTC is used in internet and World Wide Web standards. The Network Time Protocol, designed to synchronise the clocks of computers over the internet, computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC as it is more specific than GMT. If only limited precision is needed, clients can obtain the current UTC from a number of official internet UTC servers, for sub-microsecond precision, clients can obtain the time from satellite signals. UTC is also the standard used in aviation, e. g. for flight plans. Weather forecasts and maps all use UTC to avoid confusion about time zones, the International Space Station also uses UTC as a time standard. Amateur radio operators often schedule their radio contacts in UTC, because transmissions on some frequencies can be picked up by many time zones, UTC is also used in digital tachographs used on large goods vehicles under EU and AETR rules. UTC divides time into days, hours, minutes and seconds, days are conventionally identified using the Gregorian calendar, but Julian day numbers can also be used. Each day contains 24 hours and each hour contains 60 minutes, the number of seconds in a minute is usually 60, but with an occasional leap second, it may be 61 or 59 instead

Coordinated Universal Time
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Key concepts
Coordinated Universal Time
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World map of current time zones

11.
South Caucasus
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Transcaucasia, or the South Caucasus, is a geopolitical region in the vicinity of the southern Caucasus Mountains on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Transcaucasia roughly corresponds to modern Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, Transcaucasia and Ciscaucasia together comprise the larger Caucasus geographical region that divides Eurasia. All of present-day Armenia is in Transcaucasia, the majority of present-day Georgia and Azerbaijan, including the exclave of Nakhchivan, parts of Iran and Turkey are also included within the region of Transcaucasia. Goods produced in the region include oil, manganese ore, tea, citrus fruits and it remains one of the most politically tense regions in the post-Soviet area, and contains three heavily disputed areas, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Between 1878 and 1917 the Russian controlled province of Kars Oblast was also incorporated into the Transcaucasus, Transcaucasia is a Latin rendering of the Russian-language word zakavkazie, meaning the area beyond the Caucasus Mountains. This implies a Russian vantage point, and is analogous to similar terms such as Transnistria and Transleithania, other forms of this word include Trans-Caucasus and Transcaucasus. The region is referred to as Southern Caucasia and the South Caucasus. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout history, Transcaucasia was usually under the direct rule of the various in-Iran based empires and part of the Iranian world. In the course of the 19th century, Qajar Iran had to cede the region as a result of the two Russo-Persian Wars of that century to Imperial Russia. Ancient kingdoms of the region included Armenia, Albania and Iberia, later, the Orthodox Christian Kingdom of Georgia dominated most of Transcaucasia. The region was conquered by the Seljuk, Mongol, Turkic, Safavid, Ottoman, Afsharid. The 1826-1828 conquerings were confirmed in the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay, in 1801, what is now Georgia was formally incorporated into the Russian Empire. After 1828-1829 war, Ottomans ceded Western Georgia except Adjaria, which was known as Sanjak of Batum, finally after Russo-Turkish War, Russians completed conquest of Transcaucasus. In 1844, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were combined into a single czarist government-general, Transcaucasia, in particular where modern-day Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Iran are located, is one of the native areas of the wine-producing vine Vitis vinifera. Some experts speculate that Transcaucasia may be the birthplace of wine production, archaeological excavations and carbon dating of grape seeds from the area have dated back to 7000–5000 BC. Wine found in Iran has been dated to c. 7400 BC and c. 5000 BC, the earliest winery, dated to c. 4000 BC, was found in Armenia

South Caucasus
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Map of Caucasus region prepared by the U.S. State Department, 1994.

12.
UN
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General

UN
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1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of the United Nations' original three branches: The Four Policemen, an executive branch, and an international assembly of forty UN member states.
UN
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Flag
UN
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The Chilean delegation signing the UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945
UN
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Dag Hammarskjöld was a particularly active Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in 1961.

13.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably

14.
First Republic of Armenia
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The First Republic of Armenia, officially known at the time of its existence as the Republic of Armenia, was the first modern Armenian state since the loss of Armenian statehood in the Middle Ages. The republic was established in the Armenian-populated territories of the disintegrated Russian Empire, the leaders of the government came mostly from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. The First Republic of Armenia bordered the Democratic Republic of Georgia to the north, the Ottoman Empire to the west, Persia to the south, and it had a total land area of roughly 70,000 km², and a population of 1.3 million. The Armenian National Council declared the independence of Armenia on 28 May 1918, from the very onset, Armenia was plagued with a variety of domestic and foreign problems. A humanitarian crisis emerged from the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide as tens of thousands of Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire settled there, the republic lasted for over two years, during which time it was involved in several armed conflicts caused by territorial disputes. By late 1920, the nation was conquered by the Soviet Red Army, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the republic regained its independence as the current Republic of Armenia in 1991. With the help of several battalions of Armenians recruited from the Russian Empire, the Russians continued to make considerable advances even after the toppling of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. In March 1917, the revolution that toppled Tsar Nicholas. Shortly after, the Provisional Government replaced Grand Duke Nicholas administration in the Caucasus with the five-member Special Transcaucasian Committee, the Ozakom included Armenian Democrat Mikayel Papadjanian, and was set to heal wounds inflicted by the old regime. In doing so, Western Armenia was to have a general commissar and was to be subdivided into the districts of Trebizond, Erzerum, Bitlis, and Van. The decree was a concession to the Armenians, Western Armenia was placed under the central government. Dr. Hakob Zavriev would serve as the assistant for civil affairs, in October 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power from the Provisional Government and announced that they would be withdrawing troops from both the Western and Caucasus fronts. The Armenians, Georgians, and Muslims of the Caucasus all rejected the Bolsheviks legitimacy, on December 5,1917, the armistice of Erzincan was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Transcaucasian Commissariat, ending armed conflict. After the Bolshevik seizure of power, a congress of Transcaucasian representatives met to create a provisional regional executive body known as the Transcaucasian Seim. The Commissariat and the Seim were heavily encumbered by the pretense that the South Caucasus formed a unit of a non-existent Russian democracy. The Armenian deputies in the Seim were hopeful that the forces in Russia would prevail in the Russian Civil War. In February 1918, the Armenians, Georgians and Muslims had reluctantly joined to form the Transcaucasian Federation, on March 3,1918, Russian followed the armistice of Erzincan with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and left the war. It ceded territory From March 14 to April 1918, when a conference was held between the Ottoman Empire and the delegation of the Seim

First Republic of Armenia
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The Government building in Yerevan
First Republic of Armenia
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Flag
First Republic of Armenia
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Armenian population values (1921).
First Republic of Armenia
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A delegation of five hundred Armenian World War I veterans in Washington, D.C., April 1920

15.
Shahumian
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The Shahumyan Region is a disputed region, formerly a district of Azerbaijan SSR outside Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Before the Nagorno-Karabakh War of the 1990s, the district had a substantial Armenian population, the eastern part of the territory remains under the control of Azerbaijan and is incorporated into Goranboy District, but the area is claimed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Shahumian Region has 16 communities of which 1 is considered urban and 16 are rural, during Soviet times in the area was renamed after the Armenian Bolshevik Stepan Shahumyan, its administrative center taking the same name. Approximately 17,000 Armenians living in Shahumians twenty-three villages were deported out of the region, in December 1991 with the Soviet Union imploding, Shahumian was claimed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and became the focus for considerable fighting. This reached a climax in summer 1992 when most of the area was retaken by the Azerbaijan army, damage was severe and the Armenian population fled. The historical name of the town of Shahumian was abolished and renamed to Aşağı Ağcakənd in 1992 and it has been partly re-populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis, some of which are refugees. During Operation Ring, Soviet forces acting in conjunction with the local Azerbaijani OMON forcibly deported Armenians living in the villages of the region of Shahumyan, the operation involved the use of ground troops, military, armored vehicles and artillery. The deportations of the Armenian civilians were carried out with gross human rights violations documented by human rights organizations. Armeniapedia - Rediscovering Armenia - Nagorno-Karabakh

16.
Unicameralism
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In government, unicameralism is the practice of having one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Thus, a parliament or unicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of one chamber or house. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multicameralism, many multicameral legislatures were created to give separate voices to different sectors of society. Multiple chambers allowed for guaranteed representation of different social classes, ethnic or regional interests, where these factors are unimportant, in unitary states with limited regional autonomy, unicameralism often prevails. Unicameral legislatures are also common in official Communist states such as the Peoples Republic of China, similarly, many formerly Communist states, such as Ukraine, Moldova and Serbia, have retained their unicameral legislatures, though others, such as Romania and Poland, adopted bicameral legislatures. Both the former Russian SFSR and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were bicameral, the two chambers were the Soviet of Nationalities and the Soviet of the Union. The Russian Federation retained bicameralism after the dissolution of the USSR, the principal advantage of a unicameral system is more efficient lawmaking, as the legislative process is much simpler and there is no possibility of deadlock. Proponents of unicameralism have also argued that it costs, even if the number of legislators stay the same, since there are fewer institutions to maintain. There is also the risk that important sectors of society may not be adequately represented, approximately half of the worlds sovereign states are currently unicameral, including both the most populous and the least populous. Many subnational entities have unicameral legislatures, and all of the Brazilian states. In the United Kingdom, the devolved Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales, Congress of Deputies of Second Spanish Republic was unicameral between 1931 and 1936. Dissolved at the end of Spanish Civil War, the actual Spanish Parliament is bicameral, Supreme Assembly of Uzbekistan was unicameral before being replaced in 2005 by the current, bicameral Supreme Assembly. National Assembly of Cameroon was unicameral before being replaced in 2013 by the current, chamber of Peoples Representative of Equatorial Guinea was unicameral before being replaced in 2013 by the current, bicameral Parliament of Equatorial Guinea. National Assembly of Kenya was the unicameral legislature before becoming the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Kenya in 2013. National Assembly of Ivory Coast was the unicameral legislature before becoming the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Ivory Coast in 2016. Nebraskas state legislature is also unique in the sense that it is the state legislature that is entirely nonpartisan. In 1999, Governor Jesse Ventura proposed converting the Minnesota Legislature into a unicameral chamber. Although debated, the idea was never adopted, if those constitutional changes had been approved, Puerto Rico could have switched to a unicameral legislature as early as 2015

Unicameralism
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Nations with bicameral legislatures.

17.
Head of state
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A head of state is the public persona that officially represents the national unity and legitimacy of a sovereign state. In some countries, the head of state is a figurehead with limited or no executive power, while in others. Former French president Charles de Gaulle, while developing the current Constitution of France, some academic writers discuss states and governments in terms of models. An independent nation state normally has a head of state, the non-executive model, in which the head of state has either none or very limited executive powers, and mainly has a ceremonial and symbolic role. In parliamentary systems the head of state may be merely the chief executive officer, heading the executive branch of the state. This accountability and legitimacy requires that someone be chosen who has a majority support in the legislature and it also gives the legislature the right to vote down the head of government and their cabinet, forcing it either to resign or seek a parliamentary dissolution. In parliamentary constitutional monarchies, the legitimacy of the head of state typically derives from the tacit approval of the people via the elected representatives. In reality, numerous variants exist to the position of a head of state within a parliamentary system, usually, the king had the power of declaring war without previous consent of the parliament. For example, under the 1848 constitution of the Kingdom of Italy, the Statuto Albertino—the parliamentary approval to the government appointed by the king—was customary, so, Italy had a de facto parliamentarian system, but a de jure presidential system. These officials are excluded completely from the executive, they do not possess even theoretical executive powers or any role, even formal, hence their states governments are not referred to by the traditional parliamentary model head of state styles of His/Her Majestys Government or His/Her Excellencys Government. Within this general category, variants in terms of powers and functions may exist, the constitution explicitly vests all executive power in the Cabinet, who is chaired by the prime minister and responsible to the Diet. The emperor is defined in the constitution as the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people and he is a ceremonial figurehead with no independent discretionary powers related to the governance of Japan. Today, the Speaker of the Riksdag appoints the prime minister, Cabinet members are appointed and dismissed at the sole discretion of the prime minister. In contrast, the contact the President of Ireland has with the Irish government is through a formal briefing session given by the taoiseach to the president. However, he or she has no access to documentation and all access to ministers goes through the Department of the Taoiseach. The president does, however, hold limited reserve powers, such as referring a bill to the court to test its constitutionality. The most extreme non-executive republican Head of State is the President of Israel, semi-presidential systems combine features of presidential and parliamentary systems, notably a requirement that the government be answerable to both the president and the legislature. The constitution of the Fifth French Republic provides for a minister who is chosen by the president

18.
Head of government
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The term head of government is often differentiated from the term head of state, as they may be separate positions, individuals, and/or roles depending on the country. In parliamentary systems, including constitutional monarchies, the head of government is the de facto leader of the government. For example, in the United Kingdom, the prime minister advises the Queen on the appointment of the cabinet, advice she is required to accept. On the other hand, the Queens long service as the head of state enables her to provide the prime minister with information and insight into many matters to better run the government. However, because the United Kingdom is a monarchy, the Prime Minister uses his or her own discretion regarding whether or not to follow the Queens advice. The Queen also is entitled to appoint a new Prime Minister, in presidential republics or in absolute monarchies, the head of state is also usually the head of government. The relationship between that leader and the government, however, can vary greatly, ranging from separation of powers to autocracy, in semi-presidential systems, the head of government may answer to both the head of state and the legislature, with the specifics provided by each countrys constitution. A modern example is the present French government, which originated as the French Fifth Republic in 1958, in France, the president, the head of state, appoints the prime minister, who is the head of government. In some cases, the head of state may represent one political party, in this case, known as cohabitation, the prime minister, along with the cabinet, controls domestic policy, with the presidents influence is largely restricted to foreign affairs. In directorial systems, the executive responsibilities of the head of government are spread among a group of people, a prominent example is the Swiss Federal Council, where each member of the council heads a department and also votes on proposals relating to all departments. A common title for many heads of government is prime minister, various constitutions use different titles, and even the same title can have various multiple meanings, depending on the constitutional order and political system of the state in question. In addition to prime minister, titles used for the democratic model, some of these titles relate to governments below the national level. Have been used by various Empires, Kingdoms and Princely States of India as a title for the Prime Minister, maltese, In Malta, the head of government is Prim Ministru. In this case, the prime minister serves at the pleasure of the monarch, some such titles are diwan, mahamantri, pradhan, wasir or vizier. However, just because the head of state is the de jure dominant position does not mean that he/she will not always be the de facto political leader, in some cases, the head of state is a figurehead whilst the head of the government leads the ruling party. In some cases a head of government may even pass on the title in hereditary fashion, the ability to vote down legislative proposals of the government. Control over or ability to vote down fiscal measures and the budget, all of these requirements directly impact the Head of governments role. Many parliamentary systems require ministers to serve in parliament, while others ban ministers from sitting in parliament, heads of government are typically removed from power in a parliamentary system by Resignation, following, Defeat in a general election

19.
Politics of Armenia
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Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament, Armenia became independent from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic on 28 May 1918 as the First Republic of Armenia. After the First Republic collapsed on 2 December 1920, it was absorbed into the Soviet Union, the TSFSR dissolved in 1936 and Armenia became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union known as the Armenian SSR. The population of Armenia voted overwhelmingly for independence in a September 1991 referendum, Ter-Petrosyan had been elected head of government in 1990, when the National Democratic Union party defeated the Armenian Communist Party. Kocharyan was successful in riding out the unrest, in May 2000, Andranik Margaryan replaced Aram Sargsyan as Prime Minister. Kocharyans re-election as president in 2003 was followed by allegations of ballot-rigging. He went on to propose controversial constitutional amendments on the role of parliament and these were rejected in a referendum the following May at the same time as parliamentary elections which left Kocharyans party in a very powerful position in parliament. There were mounting calls for the Presidents resignation in early 2004 with thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets in support of demands for a referendum of confidence in him. The unicameral parliament is dominated by a coalition, called Unity, dashnaksutyun, which was outlawed by Ter-Petrosyan in 1995–96 but legalized again after Ter-Petrosyan resigned, also usually supports the government. The Government of Armenias stated aim is to build a Western-style parliamentary democracy as the basis of its form of government, for the most part however, Armenia is considered one of the more pro-democratic nations in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Observers noted, though, that parties and candidates have been able to mount credible campaigns. Elections since 1998 have represented an improvement in terms of fairness and efficiency, although they are still considered to have fallen short of international standards. The new constitution of 1995 greatly expanded the powers of the branch and gives it much more influence over the judiciary. The observance of human rights in Armenia is uneven and is marked by shortcomings, police brutality allegedly still goes largely unreported, while observers note that defendants are often beaten to extract confessions and are denied visits from relatives and lawyers. Freedom of religion is not always protected under existing law, nontraditional churches, especially the Jehovahs Witnesses, have been subjected to harassment, sometimes violently. All churches apart from the Armenian Apostolic Church must register with the government, the governments policy toward conscientious objection is in transition, as part of Armenias accession to the Council of Europe. Most of Armenias ethnic Azeri population was deported in 1988–1989 and remain refugees, Armenias record on discrimination toward the few remaining national minorities is generally good. The government does not restrict internal or international travel, although freedom of the press and speech are guaranteed, the government maintains its monopoly over television and radio broadcasting

20.
Civil and political rights
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Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure ones ability to participate in the civil and political life of the society, Civil and political rights form the original and main part of international human rights. They comprise the first portion of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the phrase civil rights is a translation of Latin ius civis. Roman citizens could be either free or servile, but they all had rights in law. After the Edict of Milan in 313, these included the freedom of religion. Roman legal doctrine was lost during the Middle Ages, but claims of rights could still be made based on religious doctrine. According to the leaders of Ketts Rebellion, all men may be made free. In the 17th century, English common law judge Sir Edward Coke revived the idea of rights based on citizenship by arguing that Englishmen had historically enjoyed such rights, the Parliament of England adopted the English Bill of Rights in 1689. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, by George Mason and James Madison, was adopted in 1776, the Virginia declaration is the direct ancestor and model for the U. S. Bill of Rights. The removal by legislation of a civil right constitutes a civil disability, in early 19th century Britain, the phrase civil rights most commonly referred to the issue of such legal discrimination against Catholics. In the House of Commons support for civil rights was divided, the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 restored their civil rights. In the 1860s, Americans adapted this usage to newly freed blacks, congress enacted civil rights acts in 1866,1871,1875,1957,1960,1964,1968, and 1991. Marshall notes that civil rights were among the first to be recognized and codified, followed later by political rights, in many countries, they are constitutional rights and are included in a bill of rights or similar document. They are also defined in human rights instruments, such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Civil and political rights need not be codified to be protected, although most democracies worldwide do have formal written guarantees of civil, Civil rights are considered to be natural rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America that a free people their rights as derived from the laws of nature, the question of to whom civil and political rights apply is a subject of controversy. According to political scientist Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. Custom also plays a role, the United States Declaration of Independence states that people have unalienable rights including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. It is considered by some that the purpose of government is the protection of life. Ideas of self-ownership and cognitive liberty affirm rights to choose the food one eats, the one takes

21.
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
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Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is an international organization founded in 1969, consisting of 57 member states, with a collective population of over 1.6 billion as of 2008. The OIC has permanent delegations to the United Nations and the European Union, the official languages of the OIC are Arabic, English, and French. Since the 19th century, some Muslims had aspired to ummah to serve their political, economic. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate after World War I left a vacuum for a pan-Islamic institution, the al-Aqsa fire is regarded as one of the catalysts for the formation of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in 1972. Leaders of Muslim nations met in Rabat to establish the OIC on 25 September 1969, the emblem of the OIC contains three main elements that reflect its vision and mission as incorporated in its new Charter. These elements are, the Kaaba, the Globe, and the Crescent, in June 2008, the OIC conducted a formal revision of its charter. The revised charter set out to promote human rights, fundamental freedoms, the revisions also removed any mention of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. Within the revised charter, the OIC has chosen to support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to the UNHCR, OIC countries hosted 18 million refugees by the end of 2010. Since then OIC members have absorbed refugees from conflicts, including the uprising in Syria. In May 2012, the OIC addressed these concerns at the Refugees in the Muslim World conference in Ashgabat, on 28 June 2011 during the 38th Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan the organisation changed its name from Organisation of the Islamic Conference to its current name. The OIC also changed its logo at this time, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has 57 members,56 of which are also member states of the United Nations. Some, especially in West Africa, are – though with large Muslim populations – not necessarily Muslim majority countries. A few countries with significant Muslim populations, such as Russia and Thailand, sit as Observer States, while others, the collective population of OIC member states is over 1.6 billion as of 2008. The Parliamentary Union of the OIC Member States was established in Iran in 1999, only OIC members are entitled to membership in the union. On 27 June 2007, then-United States President George W. Bush announced that the United States would establish an envoy to the OIC. Bush said of the envoy, Our special envoy will listen to and learn from representatives from Muslim states, as of June 2015, Arsalan Suleman is acting special envoy. He was appointed on 13 February 2015, the OIC, on 28 March 2008, joined the criticism of the film Fitna by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, which features disturbing images of violent acts juxtaposed with alleged verses from the Quran. In March 2015, the OIC announced its support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Shia Houthis, the OIC supports a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

22.
GUAM
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Guam is an unincorporated and organized territory of the United States. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, Guam is one of five American territories with a civilian government. The capital city is Hagåtña and the most populous city is Dededo, in 2015,161,785 people resided on Guam. Guamanians are American citizens by birth, Guam has an area of 210 sq mi and a population density of 770/sq mi. It is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands and the largest island in Micronesia, among its municipalities, Mongmong-Toto-Maite has the highest density at 3, 691/sq mi, whereas Inarajan and Umatac have the lowest density at 119/sq mi. The highest point is Mount Lamlam at 406 meters above sea level, the Chamorros, Guams indigenous people, settled the island approximately 4,000 years ago. Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to visit the island on March 6,1521, Guam was colonized in 1668 with settlers, like Diego Luis de San Vitores, a Catholic missionary. Between the 16th century and the 18th century, Guam was an important stopover for the Spanish Manila Galleons, during the Spanish–American War, the United States captured Guam on June 21,1898. Under the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Guam to the United States on December 10,1898, Guam is among the seventeen Non-Self-Governing Territories of the United Nations. Before World War II, Guam and three other territories – American Samoa, Hawaii, and the Philippines – were the only American jurisdictions in the Pacific Ocean. On December 7,1941, hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Guam was captured by the Japanese, during the occupation, Guamanians were subjected to beheadings, forced labor, rape, and torture. Guam endured hostilities when American forces recaptured the island on July 21,1944, since the 1960s, the economy has been supported by two industries, tourism and the United States Armed Forces. The original inhabitants of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are believed to be descendants of Austronesian people originating from Southeast Asia as early as 2000 BC and they evolved into the Chamorro people. The ancient-Chamorro society had four classes, chamorri, matua, achaot, the matua were located in the coastal villages, which meant they had the best access to fishing grounds, whereas the manachang were located in the interior of the island. Matua and manachang rarely communicated with other, and matua often used achaot as intermediaries. There were also makåhna, skilled in healing and medicine, belief in spirits of ancient Chamorros called Taotao mona still persists as a remnant of pre-European culture. Their society was organized along matrilineal clans, Latte stones are stone pillars that are found only in the Mariana Islands, they are a recent development in Pre-Contact Chamorro society. The latte-stone was used as a foundation on which thatched huts were built, Latte stones consist of a base shaped from limestone called the haligi and with a capstone, or tåsa, made either from a large brain coral or limestone, placed on top

23.
Karel De Gucht
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Karel Lodewijk Georgette Emmerence De Gucht is a Belgian politician who was the European Commissioner for Trade from February 2010 until 31 October 2014. Previously, he served as Belgiums Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2004 to 2009 and as the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid, De Gucht was born in Overmere, Belgium. He entered politics at an age, and became president of the Flemish Liberal Students while studying at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels. He graduated with a degree in Law and practised as a lawyer, mainly in commercial matters. He later taught European Law at his university and he became a member of the European Parliament in 1980 and fulfilled this mandate until 1994. He entered the Flemish Parliament after the elections of 1994 and moved to the Belgian Federal Parliament in 2003, in 1999 he was elected party president of the Flemish liberal party. He entered the Belgian government on 18 July 2004 as Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs and he served as deputy prime minister in 2008-2009. He was Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE in 2006 and he was a Member of the Security Council of the United Nations and Member of the European Council. In July 2009 he was appointed as the Belgian European Commissioner, like his predecessor, he was in charge of Development and Humanitarian Aid, but from February 2010 onwards, he became Commissioner of Trade in the Barroso II Commission, until 31 October 2014. He prepared and launched free trade negotiations with the United States and he achieved important trade agreements, among others with South-Korea, Colombia and Peru, Central America, Singapore, Georgia, Moldavia and Ukraine. In October 2014 he concluded CETA, the trade agreement with Canada. He oversaw the start of negotiations with Japan and Vietnam, resumed talks with Mercosur. He also concluded landmark economic partnership agreements with West Africa, South Africa and Eastern Africa, at the end of this mandate he decided to leave politics, except on the local level, where he will be the chairman of the local council. Karel De Gucht is well known for his views on different political issues. On a trip to Africa in late 2004, De Gucht sparked a controversy when he said that there is a problem with the political class in the Congo. De Gucht received a lot of support in diplomatic circles and media. Subsequent news stories suggested his concerns were well-founded, in November 2008 he was accused by an anonymous person and by the president of the extreme-right party Vlaams Belang of insider trading. Most recently De Gucht prompted the biggest controversies by his promotion of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

24.
Community for Democracy and Rights of Nations
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Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been part of the 2001 agreement, left in 2004 but became a member in 2007. All four member states have limited recognition, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are claimed by Georgia, Transnistria by Moldova. It calls for barring all types of pressure, such as military deployments, diplomatic isolation, economic blockades, or information wars and it also calls for external guarantees to eventual political settlements of these conflicts. On 27 September 2009 the members of the Community for Democracy, the agreement came into effect one month after its ratification by all three parliaments. It lasted for five years, after which it was extended for another five-year term. This agreement excludes Nagorno-Karabakh, who reserved the right to join this agreement at a later date, as of 2017, the four member states have a combined population of 947,480 people. Abkhazia and South Ossetia have secured recognition from United Nations member states such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, meanwhile, political leaders of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria have all promised to integrate their economies and perhaps seek membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Union

Community for Democracy and Rights of Nations

25.
T-72
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The T-72 is a Soviet second-generation main battle tank that entered production in 1971. About 20,000 T-72 tanks were built, making it one of the most widely produced post–World War II tanks, the T-72 was widely exported and saw service in 40 countries and in numerous conflicts. The development of the T-72 was a result of the introduction of the T-64 tank. The T-64 was an ambitious project to build a competitive tank with a weight of not more than 36 tons under the direction of Alexander Morozov in Kharkov. To achieve that goal, the crew was reduced to three soldiers, saving the loader by introducing an automated loading system and this and other steps allowed a reduced weight, but caused problems when looking for a reliable engine to fit in the smaller hull. The production of the T-64 with a 115-mm gun began in 1964, problems with the first batch of T-64 tanks were centred on the 5TDF700 hp engine and the auto loading mechanism. The engine was unreliable, was difficult to repair and had a life span of only a World War 2-era tank engine. A strong lobby around designer Morozov advocated for the T-64 in Moscow, preventing rival developments, the 5TDF was too complex and its production twice as costly as the V-45 engine. In 1967, the Uralvagonzavod formed Section 520, which was to prepare the serial production of the T-64 for 1970. The team soon found out that the more powerful V-45 engine put a lot of stress on the fragile T-64 hull, a more stable solution had to be found. Under influence from Kharkov, the idea had been turned down by Moscow, but this construction, with its big, rubbercoated roadwheels now formed the basis for the mobilisation model of the T-64. Additional changes were made to the loading system, which also was taken from an earlier project. Ammunition, consisting of a projectile and a propellant charge was now stored horizontally on two levels, not vertically on one level like in the T-64. It was said to be more reliable than the T-64 autoloader, in 1964, two 125-mm guns of the D-81 type had been used to test their installation in the T-62, so the Ural plant was ready to adopt the 125-mm calibre for the T-64A as well. Uralvagonzavod produced the first prototype with a 125-mm gun and V-45K engine in 1968 as Object 172, after intensive comparative testing with the T-64A, Object 172 was re-engineered in 1970 to deal with some minor problems. However, being only a model, a serial production of Object 172 was not possible in peacetime. In an unclear political process decree number 326-113 was issued, which allowed the production of Object 172 in the Soviet Union from 1, January 1972 and freed Uralvagonzavod from the T-64A production. At least some technical documentation on the T-72 is known to have passed to the CIA by the Polish Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski between 1971 and 1982

T-72
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T-72B3
T-72
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Object 172 at the Kubinka Tank Museum
T-72
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T-72 on a wheeled tank transporter. The engine exhaust port is visible on the left side. This tank has additional fuel drums on rear brackets.
T-72
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T-72 monument in its production place, Nizhny Tagil.

26.
Capture of Shusha
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It was named Wedding in the Mountains by the Armenian commandership. The seizure of the town proved decisive, however, some of the shelling was, according to the accounts of former residents, either indiscriminate or intentionally aimed at civilian targets. In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh had been an autonomous oblast for over seventy years inside the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR. Following its governments decision to secede from Azerbaijan and unify with Armenia, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Armenians and Azeris vied to take control of Karabakh with full-scale battles in the winter of 1992. By then, the enclave had declared its independence and set up an unrecognized, though self-functioning, a large scale population shift had also been in effect since the conflict began, with most of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan fleeing to Armenia and the Azerbaijanis in Armenia to Azerbaijan. The battle was preceded by the capture of the town. With the loss of Khojaly, Azeri commanders concentrated the rest of their firepower upon Stepanakert, on 26 January 1992 the Azerbaijani forces stationed in Shusha encircled and attacked nearby Armenian village Karintak attempting to capture it. This operation was conducted by Azerbaijan’s then defence minister Tajedin Mekhtiev and was supposed to prepare ground for future attack on Stapanakert, the operation failed as the villagers and the Armenian fighters strongly retaliated in self-defense. Mekhtiev was ambushed and up to seventy Azeri soldiers died, after this debacle, Mekhtiev left Shusha and was fired as defence minister. The Armenians to date celebrate the self-defence of Karintak as one of their early, Shusha sits on a mountaintop overlooking the NKRs highly populated capital, Stepanakert, from an elevation of 600m. An old fortress with walls, the town is five kilometers to the south of Stepanakert. From a geographical standpoint Shusha was well-suited for Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert, the main type of artillery used in the bombardment, which began on January 10,1992, was the Soviet-made BM-21 GRAD multiple rocket launcher, which was capable of firing 40 rockets in one volley. The GRAD launcher was similar to the World War II-era Katyusha in that it did not have a missile system. Essentially, the GRAD is designed to deliver anti-personnel devastation on an open battlefield, Shusha was the main fire point from where Stepanakert was assaulted. By one tally recorded in early April, a total of 157 rockets had landed on the city in a single day, by early 1992 the bombing intensified. In a course of one week the city was bombed with over 1,000 shells, in an article that appeared in TIME in April 1992, it was noted that scarcely a single building escaped damage in Stepanakert. In addition to the shelling, the Azeri military also launched air raids, while they were staved off numerous times, the citys leaders complained that military action had to be taken to relieve it from the continuous bombardment. On April 27, the military plans were approved to move in

Capture of Shusha
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Gagik Avsharyan's restored T-72 tank stands as a memorial commemorating the capture of Shusha.
Capture of Shusha
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The road to leading to Shusha where the encounter between Avsharyan's and Agarunov's tanks took place.

27.
United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General

United Nations
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1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of the United Nations' original three branches: The Four Policemen, an executive branch, and an international assembly of forty UN member states.
United Nations
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Flag
United Nations
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The Chilean delegation signing the UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945
United Nations
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Dag Hammarskjöld was a particularly active Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in 1961.

28.
United Nations Development Program
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The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations global development network. Headquartered in New York City, UNDP advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and it provides expert advice, training and grants support to developing countries, with increasing emphasis on assistance to the least developed countries. The status of UNDP is that of an executive board within the United Nations General Assembly, the UNDP Administrator is the third highest-ranking official of the United Nations after the United Nations Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General. UNDP also encourages the protection of rights and the empowerment of women in all of its programmes. The UNDP Human Development Report Office also publishes an annual Human Development Report to measure, in addition to a global Report, UNDP publishes regional, national, and local Human Development Reports. UNDP is funded entirely by contributions from member nations. The organization operates in 177 countries, where it works with governments to meet development challenges. Additionally, the UNDP works internationally to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Currently, the UNDP is one of the main UN agencies involved in the development of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, UNDP works with nations on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP, the UNDP was founded on 22 November 1965 with the merger of the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and the Special Fund. The rationale was to avoid duplication of activities, the EPTA was set up in 1949 to help the economic and political aspects of underdeveloped countries while the Special Fund was to enlarge the scope of UN technical assistance. The Special Fund arose from the idea of a Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development, while countries such as the Nordic countries were proponents of such a United Nations controlled fund. The concept of SUNFED was dropped to form the Special Fund and this Special Fund was some compromise over the SUNFED concept, it did not provide investment capital, but only helped to bring pre-conditions for private investment. With the US proposing and creating the International Development Association within the World Banks umbrella, the EPTA, in 2013, UNDP’s entire budget was approximately US$5 billion. The following table lists the top 15 DAC5 Digit Sectors to which UNDP has committed funding, the UNDP claims on the IATI Registry website that the data covers 100% of development flows. UNDP’s offices and staff are on the ground in 177 countries, working with governments, UNDP links and coordinates global and national efforts to achieve the goals and national development priorities laid out by host countries. UNDP also supports existing democratic institutions by increasing dialogue, enhancing national debate, UNDP also works at the macro level to reform trade, encourage debt relief and foreign investment, and ensure the poorest of the poor benefit from globalisation. On the ground, UNDP sponsors developmental pilot projects, promotes the role of women in development, in this way, UNDP works with local leaders and governments to provide opportunities for impoverished people to create businesses and improve their economic condition

United Nations Development Program
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United Nations Development Programme

29.
Demining
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Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area, while minesweeping describes the act of detecting mines. There are two types of mine detection and removal, military and humanitarian. Minesweepers use many tools in order to accomplish their task, there also are or have been other methods developed to detect mines, including the use of trained marine mammals, bacteria, acoustics, and other more exotic methods. In the combat zone, the process is referred to as mine clearance, according to the doctrine of the U. S. and other armies, mine clearance is carried out by combat engineers. The military priority is to breach the minefield quickly in order to create a path for troops or ships. Speed is vital, both for reasons and because units attempting to breach the minefield may be under enemy fire. Both anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines must be removed, although only in the lanes through which troops or vehicles are planned to advance. The risk to sappers is far greater because they may be called upon to perform clearance as tactics dictate, including in all-weather conditions, command may accept casualties in the process. Furthermore, it is accepted that mine clearance will be imperfect, one advantage is that, in military operations, sappers are dealing with recently laid mines that respond predictably to clearance, have not migrated, and have not degraded. In this they are aided by technical intelligence on the current adversarys mines. In these mine clearance operations, the methods that are applied for detection and removal are quicker, in times of relative peace, the process of mine removal is referred to as demining. This is a thorough, time-intensive process that seeks to locate all mines so that the land or sea area may be returned to normal use. It is vital that this process be exhaustive, in this context demining is one of the tools of mine action. Coordinated by Mine Action Coordination Centers run by the United Nations or a host government, in post-conflict areas, minefields are often contaminated with a mixture of explosive remnants of war that includes unexploded ordnance as well as landmines. In that context, the humanitarian effort is often referred to as battle area clearance. In some situations, clearing landmines is a condition before other humanitarian programs can be implemented. There is an organization, APOPO, that is training African rats to detect landmines much as dogs do, in many circumstances, the only method that meets the United Nations requirements for effective humanitarian demining, the International Mine Action Standards, is manual detection and disarmament. The process is slow, expensive and dangerous, although demining can be safer than construction work if procedures are followed rigorously

30.
Dram (currency)
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The dram is the monetary unit of Armenia. It is subdivided into 100 luma, the word dram translates into English as money and is cognate with the Greek drachma and the Arabic dirham. The first instance of a currency was in the period from 1199 to 1375. On 21 September 1991, a referendum proclaimed Armenia as an independent republic from the Soviet Union. The Central Bank of Armenia, established on 27 March 1993, was given the right of issuing the national currency. In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union attempts were made to maintain a common currency among CIS states, however it soon became clear that maintaining a currency union in the unstable political and economical circumstances of the post-Soviet states would be very difficult. The rublezone effectively collapsed with the monetary reform in Russia,1993. As result the states that were still participating were pushed out, Armenia was one of the last countries to do so when it introduced the dram on 22 November 1993. In 1995 the currency sign for the Armenian dram was designed. The Armenian dram sign is the sign of the Armenian dram. In Unicode, it is encoded at U+058F ֏ ARMENIAN DRAM SIGN, after its proclamation of independence, Armenia put into circulation its own national currency – Armenian Dram, the usage of which revealed the necessity for a monetary sign. As the result of business practice and the unique pattern of Armenian letters the shape of the sign. Since that time and until the endorsement of the sign a number of artists. Now the Sign is present in the Armenian standard for the characters and symbols. The Armenian dram is also used in the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a separate currency, the Nagorno-Karabakh dram, which circulates together with the Armenian dram was introduced during 2005. Coins and banknotes ranging in nominal values from 50 luma to 10 dram were issued, officially the Nagorno-Karabakh dram is legal tender in both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. In practice it is mostly sold as souvenirs due to the low nominal values of the coins. In 1994, a first series of coins was introduced in denominations of 10,20 and 50 luma,1,3,5 and 10 dram. In 2003 and 2004, a series consisting of 10,20,50,100,200 and 500 dram coins was introduced to replace the first series

31.
Human Rights Watch
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Human Rights Watch is an American-founded international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. C. and Zurich. The organizations annual expenses totaled $50.6 million in 2011, Human Rights Watch was founded by Robert L. Bernstein as a private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch, to monitor the former Soviet Unions compliance with the Helsinki Accords. Helsinki Watch adopted a practice of naming and shaming abusive governments through media coverage. Americas Watch was founded in 1981 while bloody civil wars engulfed Central America, asia Watch, Africa Watch, and Middle East Watch were added to what was known as The Watch Committees. In 1988, all of these committees were united under one umbrella to form Human Rights Watch, pursuant to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch opposes violations of what it considers basic human rights. This includes capital punishment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, HRW advocates freedoms in connection with fundamental human rights, such as freedom of religion and freedom of the press. These reports are used as the basis for drawing attention to abuses and pressuring governments. HRW has documented and reported violations of the laws of war. Human Rights Watch also supports writers worldwide, who are being persecuted for their work and are in need of financial assistance. The Hellman/Hammett grants are financed by the estate of the playwright Lillian Hellman in funds set up in her name and that of her long-time companion, the novelist Dashiell Hammett. In addition to providing assistance, the Hellman/Hammett grants help raise international awareness of activists who are being silenced for speaking out in defense of human rights. Each year, Human Rights Watch presents the Human Rights Defenders Award to activists around the world who demonstrate leadership, the award winners work closely with HRW in investigating and exposing human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch was one of six international NGOs that founded the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in 1998, Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of non-governmental organizations that monitor censorship worldwide. It also co-founded the Cluster Munition Coalition, which brought about an international convention banning the weapons, HRW employs more than 275 staff—country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics – and operates in more than 90 countries around the world. The current executive director of HRW is Kenneth Roth, who has held the position since 1993, Roth conducted investigations on abuses in Poland after martial law was declared 1981. He later focused on Haiti, which had just emerged from the Duvalier dictatorship, roth’s awareness of the importance of human rights began with stories his father had told about escaping Nazi Germany in 1938. Roth graduated from Yale Law School and Brown University, HRW has been criticized for perceived bias by the national governments it has investigated for human rights abuses, and by NGO Monitor, and HRWs founder, and former Chairman, Robert L. Bernstein. Bias allegations include undue influence by United States government policy, HRW has routinely publicly responded to, and often rejected, criticism of its reporting and findings

32.
Rambouillet
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Rambouillet is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located on the outskirts of Paris,44.3 km southwest from the centre, Rambouillet is a sub-prefecture of the department. Rambouillet lies on the edge of the vast Forest of Rambouillet, and is famous for its castle, the Château de Rambouillet. Due to its proximity to Paris and Versailles, Rambouillet has long been a seat of government. Rambouillet is served by the SNCF Rambouillet railway station on the Transilien Paris – Montparnasse suburban rail line to Chartres. The Château de Rambouillet, a medieval fortress, was acquired by Louis XVI of France in 1783 as a private residence because of its ideal situation in the game-rich forest of Rambouillet. It became a bien national during the French Revolution of 1789, at the time of the Bourbon Restoration, the castle became royal residence, and it is there that Charles X signed his abdication on 2 August 1830. The Palais du Roi de Rome and its entrance is situated in the rue Charles de Gaulle, Rambouillets main street. The Hôtel de Ville, the former Bailliage was built in 1786 at the request of Louis XVI by the architect Jacques-Jean Thévenin and it was given by Napoléon I to the inhabitants of Rambouillet to serve as their City Hall. The inscription over the doors of the City Hall reads Donated to the inhabitants of Rambouillet by Napoleon the Great, the new Saint-Lubin church was built between 1868 and 1871. Its architect was Anatole de Baudot, a student of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the Bergerie nationale was built on the grounds of the Domain of Rambouillet at the request of Louis XVI, and is the home of the Rambouillet Merino sheep since 1786. The Laiterie de la Reine, the Queens Dairy also built on the grounds of the Domain of Rambouillet, is adjacent to the Bergerie and it was built in 1787 at the request of Louis XVI for his wife Marie Antoinette and designed by the architect Jean-Jacques Thévenin. The Musée Rambolitrain, situated across from the Saint-Lubin church, is a museum featuring miniature trains and we find the a faithful reconstruction of a Parisian toy store of the 1930s. The Monument Américain, is situated at the entrance of the town on the D906 road to Chartres. The monument was erected in 1947, the names of nine American soldiers are inscribed on a plaque on the monument. Commemorative ceremonies are held at the monument every 19 August

Rambouillet
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Château of Rambouillet
Rambouillet
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The church in Rambouillet

33.
Security belt of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
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The outer perimeter of these territories is a line of direct contact between the military forces of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan. During the Nagorno-Karabakh war Azerbaijan had subjected Nagorno-Karabakh to a total blockade, in 1992 the United States Congress added Section 907 to the Freedom Support Act of 1992, which banned direct US government support to the government of Azerbaijan. On 24 October 2001 the Senate adopted an amendment that would provide the President with the ability to waive Section 907,18 May 1992, Armenian forces took Lachin, opening the Lachin corridor for land communications between NKR and Armenia. However, the corridor was under constant threat from Azerbaijani forces who tried to cut it. A strong offensive by Armenian forces occurred in 1993, resulting in the securing of further territory to act as a security zone,23 July 1993, after 40 days of fighting, officially known in Armenia as the suppression of enemy firing points, Agdam was taken. Then followed attack in the south,22 August 1993 Fizuli was taken,25 August 1993 - Jebrail was taken. 31 August 1993 - Kubatly was taken,1 November 1993 - Zangelan was taken. Since then, Armenians have been in control of most of the territory of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, with Azerbaijan controlling parts of east Martuni and east Martakert. Nagorno-Karabakh also claims but does not control the region known until 1992 as Shahumian, shahumians Armenian population was driven out during the war, and the Armenian and Azeri forces have been separated on the northern front by the Murovdag mountain chain ever since. Since 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan have held talks on the future of the security belt territories, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has not been involved in these negotiations because Azerbaijan does not recognize the existence of such parties to the conflict. The Armenian side has offered to act in accordance with the land for status formula, Azerbaijan, facilitators have also offered, in particular, another land for status option. The involved parties have failed to any agreement. From the standpoint of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and 7 adjacent districts are a territory occupied by Armenia, some Armenian sources use the term liberated territories, emphasising Armenian historical and religious monuments in the area and the presence of an Armenian population since 350BC. The monastery was founded by St. Dadi, a disciple of Thaddeus the Apostle who spread Christianity in Eastern Armenia during the first century A. C, in June,2007, the grave of St. Dadi was discovered under the holy altar of the main church. Tzitzernavank Monastery, a fifth- to sixth-century Armenian church and former monastery, the monastery is within five kilometers of the border of Armenias province of Syunik. The basilica of Tzitzernavank was believed to contain relics of St. George the Dragon-Slayer, in the past, the monastery belonged to the Tatev diocese and is mentioned as a notable religious center by the 13th century historian Stepanos Orbelian and Bishop Tovma Vanandetsi. Handaberd Fortress, Armenian castle and fortress, built in the 11th century, that belonged to the rulers of the Kingdom of Upper Khachen and the Kingdom of Tzar. Handaberd Monastery, An Armenian Monastery that belonged to the rulers of the Kingdom of Upper Khachen, Tigranakert, - ruins of an ancient Armenian city near the borders of NKRs Mardakert district, dating back to the Hellenistic period

Security belt of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
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Armenian-controlled territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh are marked yellow. Brown hatched patterned indicates the Shaumian district and the territory of the former Nagorny Karabakh autonomous region, areas considered by the NKR authorities to be part of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic but controlled by Azerbaijan.

34.
Heydar Aliyev
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Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev or Geidar Aliev, also spelled Haydar Aliev or Geidar Aliev, was the was the third President of Azerbaijan who served from October 1993 to October 2003. As the president of his country he was indeed a powerful politician. As a young man he had joined the Azerbaijan SSR Peoples Commissariat for State Security, within a few years of his entry into the political world he proved himself to be a very intelligent, hardworking and shrewd politician, eventually becoming the chairman of the agency. Even though initially he implemented reforms to curb corruption and gained the trust of his citizens, over a period of time he became notorious for his repressive and autocratic rule. He came to power at a time when Azerbaijan was in the throes of political and economic crises, however, the rising rate of corruption and violence made him lose favor with the Azerbaijanis. Many of the details of Aliyevs early life are obscure, according to his website, he was born in Nakhchivan City. After graduating from Nakhchivan Pedagogical School, from 1939 to 1941 Aliyev attended the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute, in 1949 and 1950, he studied at the USSR MGB Officer Corps Qualifications-Raising School. Aliyevs official biography stated that he studied at Baku State University. According to American journalist Pete Earley, Aliyev first attended the Ministry of State Security Academy in Leningrad, in 1948, he married Zarifa Aliyeva. On 12 October 1955, their daughter Sevil was born, on 24 December 1961, their son Ilham was born. Zarifa died of cancer in 1985, Aliyev joined the Azerbaijan SSR Peoples Commissariat for State Security in 1944. In 1954, as part of a government reform, NKGB became known as Committee for State Security, or the KGB. Aliyev rose quickly within the agency to the rank of Major-General, became a deputy chairman of Azerbaijani KGB in 1964, its chairman in 1967 and rose to the rank of a major general. In the early 1980s, Aliyev barred the offspring of certain legal personnel from attending the Republics law school, in 1977, even in Brezhnevs time, he visited Iran, Mashhad twice and Kerbala once. During the period of his leadership of Soviet Azerbaijan, Aliyevs efforts led to increased economic. Aliyev became perhaps the most successful leader, raising the profile of the underprivileged republic. Aliyev thus attained the highest position reached by an Azerbaijani in the Soviet Union. In October 1987, Aliyev resigned from this post as a sign of protest against the policy pursued by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the SSR and, personally, as head of the KGBs branch in Azerbaijan, Aliyev ran an anti-corruption campaign

35.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania

36.
Commonwealth of Independent States
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The Commonwealth of Independent States, also called the Russian Commonwealth, is a regional organization formed during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Nine out of the 15 former Soviet Republics are member states, Georgia withdrew its membership in 2008, while the Baltic states chose not to participate. The CIS has few supranational powers but aims to be more than a purely symbolic organization, nominally possessing coordinating powers in the realms of trade, finance, lawmaking and it has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime prevention. Furthermore, eight of the nine CIS member states participate in the CIS Free Trade Area, three organizations are under the overview of the CIS, namely the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Union State. While the first and the second are military and economic alliances, in March 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, proposed a federation by holding a referendum to preserve the Union as the Union of Sovereign States. The new treaty signing never happened as the Communist Party hardliners staged a coup in August that year. Following the events of August, the republics had declared their independence fearing another coup, at the same time they announced that the new alliance would be open to all republics of the former Soviet Union, and to other nations sharing the same goals. The CIS charter stated that all the members were sovereign and independent nations, Georgia joined two years later, in December 1993. At this point,12 of the 15 former Soviet Republics participated in the CIS, the three Baltic states did not, reflecting their governments view that the post-1940 Soviet occupation of their territory was illegitimate. In May 2009, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine joined the Eastern Partnership, there are nine full member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Creation Agreement remained the main constituent document of the CIS until January 1993, the charter formalised the concept of membership, a member country is defined as a country that ratifies the CIS Charter. Turkmenistan has not ratified the charter and changed its CIS standing to associate member as of 26 August 2005 in order to be consistent with its UN-recognised international neutrality status, thus it does not regard itself as a member of the CIS. In 1993 Ukraine became an Associate Member of CIS, following the 2014 parliamentary election, a new bill to denounce the CIS agreement was introduced. In September 2015 the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Ukraine will continue taking part in CIS on a selective basis, since that month Ukraine has had no representatives in the CIS Executive Committee building. Since its inception, one of the goals of the CIS has been to provide a forum for discussing issues related to the social. To achieve this goal member states have agreed to promote and protect human rights, even before the 1995 human rights treaty, the Charter of the CIS that was adopted in 1991 created, in article 33, a Human Rights Commission sitting in Minsk, Belarus. This was confirmed by decision of the Council of Heads of States of the CIS in 1993, in 1995, the CIS adopted a human rights treaty that includes civil and political as well as social and economic human rights. This treaty entered force in 1998

Commonwealth of Independent States
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Signing of the agreement to establish the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), December 8, 1991.
Commonwealth of Independent States
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Flag
Commonwealth of Independent States
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Meeting of CIS leaders in Bishkek, 2008.

37.
Kalbajar
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Armenian and Karabakh forces invaded and occupied Kalbajar the Nagorno-Karabakh War, due to its strategic location between the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and Armenia. Human Rights Watch findings concluded that during the Kelbajar offensive both sides violated rules of wars, including fire, and the taking of hostages. The capture was condemned by the UN Security Council, there are 13 lakes in local plains and mountains. Kalbajar’s longest river is the Tartarchay and its tributaries are the Tutkhun, Lev, Zaylik, Alolar, Garaarkhaj rivers. There are also 20 well-known water springs, 70-80 per cent of the district is made up of mountains and each of them has a name. Since motor traffic in mountains is limited, local people have divided the district in different zones,1, upper zone – territories stretching from the center westwards 2. Tutgu zone – area around Zulfugarli- Baslibel 5, sarsang SES zone – forests in the east 6. The Dalidagh-Sariyer-Keyti zone consists of mountains and plains Kalbajar at GEOnet Names Server World Gazetteer

38.
Bucharest
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Bucharest is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, at 44°25′57″N 26°06′14″E, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than 60 km north of the Danube River, Bucharest was first mentioned in documents in 1459. It became the capital of Romania in 1862 and is the centre of Romanian media, culture and its architecture is a mix of historical, interbellum, communist-era and modern. In the period between the two World Wars, the citys elegant architecture and the sophistication of its elite earned Bucharest the nickname of Little Paris. Although buildings and districts in the city centre were heavily damaged or destroyed by war, earthquakes. In recent years, the city has been experiencing an economic, in 2016, the historical city centre was listed as endangered by the World Monuments Watch. According to the 2011 census,1,883,425 inhabitants live within the city limits, the urban area extends beyond the limits of Bucharest proper and has a population of about 1.9 million people. Adding the satellite towns around the area, the proposed metropolitan area of Bucharest would have a population of 2.27 million people. According to Eurostat, Bucharest has an urban zone of 2,183,091 residents. According to unofficial data, the population is more than 3 million, Bucharest is the sixth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits, after London, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, and Paris. Economically, Bucharest is the most prosperous city in Romania and is one of the industrial centres. The city has big convention facilities, educational institutes, cultural venues, traditional shopping arcades, the Romanian name București has an uncertain origin. Tradition connects the founding of Bucharest with the name of Bucur, who was a prince, an outlaw, a fisherman, in Romanian, the word stem bucurie means joy, and it is believed to be of Dacian origin. Other etymologies are given by scholars, including the one of an Ottoman traveler, Evliya Çelebi. A native or resident of Bucharest is called a Bucharester, Bucharests history alternated periods of development and decline from the early settlements in antiquity until its consolidation as the national capital of Romania late in the 19th century. First mentioned as the Citadel of București in 1459, it became the residence of the famous Wallachian prince Vlad III the Impaler, the Ottomans appointed Greek administrators to run the town from the 18th century. A short-lived revolt initiated by Tudor Vladimirescu in 1821 led to the end of the rule of Constantinople Greeks in Bucharest, the Old Princely Court was erected by Mircea Ciobanul in the mid-16th century. Under subsequent rulers, Bucharest was established as the residence of the royal court

39.
Vardan Oskanyan
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Vartan Oskanian is former Foreign Minister of Armenia and founder of the Civilitas Foundation. Born into a wealthy Armenian jewelers family in Syria, Oskanian was educated in the Armenian schools of Aleppo, in 1990, while finishing his graduate studies, he and a group of disoriented friends founded the Armenian International Magazine in California. Oskanian was a trustee of Armenia Fund, an organization that channels aid from the Armenian Diaspora to rebuild Armenia. He was also president of the Pan-Armenian Games, Oskanian moved to Armenia in 1992, shortly after Armenia’s independence, and began work at the foreign ministry, first in the Middle East Department, then as head of the North America Department. In 1994, he became Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and in 1996, in 1998, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by President Robert Kocharyan. During his time as Minister of Foreign Affairs Oskanian pursued six policies, the policy of complementarity emphasized inclusion and collaboration between Armenia and its neighbors. It made possible a strategic partnership with Russia, continued membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the policy of multilateralism sought consistent engagement in global issues. Next, through promoting Armenia to integrate with Europe, Oskanian worked to accelerate integration with the Council of Europe, for Armenia-Turkey relations, policy insisted on the logic of Armenias normal relations with Turkey and included early attempts toward protocols between the two states. The sixth major policy a strategy for the resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, on this issue, Oskanians approach broke significantly from previous policy. He pursued an agreement that did not force Nagorno Karabakh to remain within Azerbaijan. Born of this effort was the classification “de facto independent, de jure not part of Azerbaijan. ”In 2008, Oskanian founded the Civilitas Foundation, in April 2016, Oskanian founded the Unity party. Vartan Oskanian is married to Dr. Nani Oskanian

Vardan Oskanyan
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Oskanian in 2013

40.
Isa Gambar
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Isa Yunis oglu Qambar, also known as Isa Gambar or Isa Qambar, is a prominent Azerbaijani politician and leader of the Equality Party, the largest opposition block in Azerbaijan. İsa Qambar is married and has two sons and his wife, Aida Bağırova, is a Doctor of History, a Professor at Baku State University. The government had stacked the Central Election Commission and local election commission with its supporters, in his role as leader of Müsavat, Gambar has played a major part in spring 2011 demonstrations inspired by other protests throughout the Middle East. There is a criminal, authoritarian and corrupt regime in Azerbaijan, for his part, Isa Gambar said, The Ministry of Defence has a right to place soldiers in any location at its disposal. So I dont want to politicize this issue, president of Azerbaijan Politics of Azerbaijan National Assembly of Azerbaijan Foreign relations of Azerbaijan List of political parties in Azerbaijan Forrest, Brett

Isa Gambar
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Gambar in 2013

41.
Matthew Bryza
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Matthew James Bryza is a former United States diplomat. His last post in the United States foreign service was the United States Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Bryza joined the United States Foreign Service in August 1988. He then served in Poland in 1989-1991 at the U. S, consulate in Poznań and the U. S. Embassy in Warsaw, where he covered the Solidarity movement, reform of Poland’s security services, and regional politics. From 1991 through 1995, he worked on European and Russian affairs at the State Department and he was recalled from Moscow after he allegedly hit a pedestrian in August 1997. From 1997 through 1998, Bryza was special advisor to Ambassador Richard Morningstar, coordinating U. S. Government assistance programs on economic reforms in Caucasus and Central Asia. Starting from July,1998 he served as the Deputy Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy, governments inter-agency efforts to develop a network of oil and gas pipelines in the Caspian region. In June 2005, he assumed duties of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and he was responsible for policy oversight and management of relations with countries in the Caucasus and Southern Europe. He also led U. S. efforts to advance peaceful settlements of separatist conflicts of Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Additionally, he coordinated U. S. energy policy in the surrounding the Black and Caspian Seas and worked with European countries on issues of tolerance, social integration. Co-Chair to the OSCE Minsk Group charged with helping to negotiate a settlement of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict, in May 2010, the White House appointed Bryza as the United States Ambassador to Azerbaijan. On September 21,2010, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his ambassadorial nomination, on December 29,2010 Bryzas appointment by President Obama was confirmed by the White House as a recess appointment. He served as ambassador to Azerbaijan starting from February 2011, washington Post editor Fred Hiatt described it as a vivid example of how the larger U. S. national interest can fall victim to special-interest jockeying and political accommodation. Bryza works as a consultant on business and democratic development, and is a member of several private companies in Turkey. In June 2012, Bryza was appointed member of Turcas Petrol. Since March 1,2012 Bryza has been appointed the Director of the International Centre for Defense Studies, in August 2012, he became board member of the Jamestown Foundation. Bryza was awarded with Fletcher Young Alumni Award in 2004, Order of the Golden Fleece, Georgia in 2009, Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, Fourth Class and his first marriage ended in divorce. On August 23,2007, he married Zeyno Baran, from whom he has a daughter and he lives with his family in Istanbul, Turkey. Bryza is fluent in Polish and Russian, and also speaks German and Spanish, and conversational Azeri

Matthew Bryza
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Matthew James Bryza

42.
Erivan khanate
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The Erivan Khanate, also known as Čoḵūr Saʿd, was a khanate that was established in Safavid Iran in the eighteenth century. As a result of the Iranian defeat in the last Russo-Iranian war, it was occupied by Russian troops in 1827, immediately following this, the territories of the former Erivan Khanate and the Nakhchivan Khanate were joined to form the Armenian Oblast of the Russian Empire. During the Iranian rule, the appointed the various khans as beglarbegī to preside over their domains. These khans from the Qajar tribe, of Turkic origin, also known as the sirdar, governed the entire khanate, the khanate was divided into fifteen administrative districts called maḥals with Persian as its official language. Many events led to the demise of the Armenian population from the region, Shah Abbas Is deportation of much of the population from the Armenian Highlands in 1605 was one event, when as many as 250,000 Armenians were removed from the region. To repopulate the region of his realm, Shah Abbas II permitted the Turkic Kangarli tribe to return. Under Nader Shah, when the Armenians suffered excessive taxation and other penalties, many emigrated, following the resettlement of Iranian Armenians in the newly conquered Russian territories after 1828, significant demographic shifts were bound to take place. One of his successors, Melik-Hakob-Jan, attended the coronation of Nader Shah in the Mughan plain in 1736, under the melik of Erivan were a number of other meliks in the khanate, with each maḥall inhabited by Armenians having its own local melik. Second in importance only to the khan himself, they alone among the Armenians of Erivan were allowed to wear the dress of an Iranian of rank. The melik of Erivan had full administrative, legislative and judicial authority over Armenians up to the sentence of the death penalty, the melik exercised a military function as well, because he or his appointee commanded the Armenian infantry contingents in the khan’s army. All the other meliks and village headmen of the khanate were subordinate to the melik of Erivan, the Khanate of Erevan Under Qajar Rule, 1795-1828

43.
Azeris
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Azerbaijanis or Azeris, also known as Azerbaijani Turks, are a Turkic ethnic group in the Caucasus living mainly in Iranian Azerbaijan and the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numerous ethnic group among the Turkic peoples after Anatolian Turks and they are predominantly Shii Muslims, and have a mixed cultural heritage, including Turkic, Iranian, and Caucasian elements. They comprise the largest ethnic group in Republic of Azerbaijan and by far the second-largest ethnic group in neighboring Iran, the worlds largest number of ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Iran, followed by Azerbaijan. The formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group. However, northerners and southerners due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution of Iranian Azerbaijanis and Azerbaijanis in Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is believed to be named after Atropates, a Persian satrap who ruled in Atropatene circa 321 B. C. The name Atropates is the Hellenistic form of Aturpat which means guardian of fire, itself a compound of ātūr fire + -pat suffix for -guardian, -lord, present-day name Azerbaijan is the Arabicized form of Azarbaigān. The latter is derived from Ādurbādagān, itself ultimately from Āturpātakān meaning the land associated with Aturpat, the Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, written in the 1890s, also referred to Tatars in Azerbaijan as Aderbeijans, but noted that the term had not been adopted widely. In Azerbaijani language publications, the expression Azerbaijani nation referring to those who were known as Tatars of the Caucasus first appeared in the newspaper Kashkul in 1880, Ancient residents of the area spoke the Old Azeri, which belonged to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. In the 11th century AD with Seljukid conquests, Oghuz Turkic tribes started moving across the Iranian plateau into the Caucasus, the influx of the Oghuz and other Turkmen tribes was further accentuated by the Mongol invasion. Today, this Turkic-speaking population is known as Azerbaijani, caucasian-speaking Albanian tribes are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of the region where the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan is located. Early Iranian settlements included the Scythians in the ninth century BC, following the Scythians, the Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras River. Ancient Iranian people of the Medes forged a vast empire between 900 and 700 BC, which the Achaemenids integrated into their own empire around 550 BC, during this period, Zoroastrianism spread in the Caucasus and in Atropatene. Alexander the Great defeated the Achaemenids in 330 BC, but allowed the Median satrap Atropates to remain in power, following the decline of the Seleucids in Persia in 247 BC, an Armenian Kingdom exercised control over parts of Caucasian Albania. Caucasian Albanians established a kingdom in the first century BC and largely remained independent until the Persian Sassanids made their kingdom a vassal state in 252 AD, sassanid control ended with their defeat by Muslim Arabs in 642 AD, through the Muslim conquest of Persia. Muslim Arabs defeated the Sassanids and Byzantines as they marched into the Caucasus region, the Arabs made Caucasian Albania a vassal state after the Christian resistance, led by Prince Javanshir, surrendered in 667. Between the ninth and tenth centuries, Arab authors began to refer to the region between the Kura and Aras rivers as Arran, during this time, Arabs from Basra and Kufa came to Azerbaijan and seized lands that indigenous peoples had abandoned, the Arabs became a land-owning elite. Conversion to Islam was slow as local resistance persisted for centuries and resentment grew as small groups of Arabs began migrating to cities such as Tabriz and this influx sparked a major rebellion in Iranian Azerbaijan from 816–837, led by a local Zoroastrian commoner named Bābak

44.
Caucasus
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The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europes highest mountain, politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The region is known for its diversity, aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian. Pliny the Elders Natural History derives the name of the Caucasus from Scythian kroy-khasis, German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word Kruvesis also means ice. According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the South Caucasus region and southern Dagestan were the furthest points of Persian expansions, with areas to the north of Caucasus Mountains practically impregnable. The mythological mountain of Qaf, the worlds highest mountain that ancient lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region, therefore, the Caucasus might be associated with the legendary mountain. The Ciscaucasus contains the majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands, all of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, the Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognised by the majority of independent states as part of Georgia, the Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. The region has many different languages and language families, there are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. Russian is used as a common language, today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the part of the region. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world

45.
Abkhazia
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Abkhazia is a partially recognised state on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus Mountains, south of Russia and northwest of Georgia proper. It covers 8,660 square kilometres and has a population of around 240,000, the separatist Abkhazian polity, formally the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny, is recognised only by Russia and a small number of other countries. The status of Abkhazia is an issue of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict. The region enjoyed autonomy within Soviet Georgia at the time when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in the late 1980s, despite the 1994 ceasefire agreement and years of negotiations, the dispute remained unresolved. The long-term presence of a United Nations Observer Mission and a Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States peacekeeping force failed to prevent the flare-up of violence on several occasions. On 28 August 2008, the Parliament of Georgia declared Abkhazia a Russian-occupied territory, the Abkhazians call their homeland Аҧсны, popularly etymologised as a land/country of the soul, yet literally meaning a country of mortals. It possibly first appeared in the century in an Armenian text as Psin. The state is designated as the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny. The Russian Абхазия is adapted from the Georgian აფხაზეთი, in Mingrelian, Abkhazia is known as აბჟუა or სააფხაზო. Between the 9th and 6th centuries BC, the territory of modern Abkhazia was part of the ancient Georgian kingdom of Colchis and this kingdom was subsequently absorbed in 63 BC into the Kingdom of Egrisi, known to Byzantine Roman sources as Lazica. Classical authors described various peoples living in the region and the multitude of languages they spoke. Arrian, Pliny and Strabo have given accounts of the Abasgoi and Moschoi peoples somewhere in modern Abkhazia on the shore of the Black Sea. Around the mid 6th century AD, the Byzantines and the neighbouring Sassanid Persia fought for supremacy over Abkhazia for 20 years, Abkhazia, or Abasgia in classic sources, formerly part of Colchis and later of Egrisi until the late 690s, was a princedom under Byzantine authority. The country was mostly Christian, with the seat in Pityus. An Arab incursion into Abkhazia led by Marwan II, was repelled by Leon I jointly with his Egrisian and Kartlian allies in 736, after acquiring Egrisi via a dynastic union in the 780s the Kingdom of Abkhazia was established and became a dominant power in western Caucasus. During this period the Georgian language replaced Greek as the language of literacy, the western Georgian kingdom flourished between 850 and 950 when it annexed significant parts of central Georgia. In the 16th century, after the break-up of the Georgian Kingdom into small kingdoms and principalities, since the 1570s, when the Ottoman navy occupied the fort of Tskhumi, Abkhazia came under the influence of the Ottoman Empire and Islam. Under Ottoman rule, the majority of Abkhaz elite converted to Islam, the principality retained a degree of autonomy

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Abkhazia in 1899. Abkhazia was administered as Sukhumi District of Kutaisi Governorate when it was part of the Russian Empire.
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Flag
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Abkhaz and Georgian generals in the Imperial Russian Army, 19th century
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The 12th anniversary of ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia which was held in Tbilisi in 2005. One of the visitors of the gallery recognised her dead son on the photograph.

46.
South Ossetia
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It has a population of 53,000 people which live in an area of 3,900 km2, south of the Russian Caucasus, with 30,000 living in its capital city of Tskhinvali. South Ossetia declared independence from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, the Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetias autonomy and trying to re-establish its control over the region by force. The crisis escalation led to the 1991–92 South Ossetia War, Georgian fighting against those controlling South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The latter conflict led to the Russo–Georgian War, during which Ossetian and Russian forces gained full de facto control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. In the wake of the 2008 war, Russia, followed by Nicaragua, Venezuela, Georgia and a significant part of the international community consider South Ossetia to be occupied by the Russian military. South Ossetia relies heavily on military, political and financial aid from Russia, Russia does not allow European Union Monitoring Mission monitors to enter South Ossetia. South Ossetia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Abkhazia are sometimes referred to as post-Soviet frozen conflict zones, the Ossetians are believed to originate from the Alans, a Sarmatian Iranian tribe. In the 17th century, Ossetians started migration from the North Caucasus to Georgia, Ossetian peasants, who were migrating to the mountainous areas of the South Caucasus, often settled in the lands of Georgian feudal lords. The Georgian King of the Kingdom of Kartli permitted Ossetians to immigrate, in the 1770s there were more Ossetians living in Kartli than ever before. This period has been documented in the diaries of Johann Anton Güldenstädt who visited Georgia in 1772. The Baltic German explorer called modern North Ossetia simply Ossetia, while he wrote that Kartli was populated by Georgians, Güldenstädt also wrote that the northernmost border of Kartli is the Major Caucasus Ridge. The Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, part of which was the territory of modern South Ossetia, was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1801. Following the Russian revolution, the area of modern South Ossetia became part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, although the Ossetians were initially discontented with the economic policies of the central government, the tension soon transformed into ethnic conflict. The first Ossetian rebellion began in February 1918, when three Georgian princes were killed and their land was seized by the Ossetians, the central government of Tiflis retaliated by sending the National Guard to the area. However, the Georgian unit retreated after they had engaged the Ossetians, Ossetian rebels then proceeded to occupy the town of Tskhinvali and began attacking ethnic Georgian civilian population. During uprisings in 1919 and 1920, the Ossetians were covertly supported by Soviet Russia, but even so, were defeated. Between 3,000 and 7,000 Ossetians were killed during the crushing of the 1920 uprising, according to Ossetian sources ensuing hunger, the drawing of administrative boundaries of the South Ossetian AO was quite a complicated process. Many Georgian villages were included within the South Ossetian AO despite numerous protests by the Georgian population, while the city of Tskhinvali did not have a majority Ossetian population, it was made the capital of the South Ossetian AO

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Historical Russian map of the Caucasus region at the beginning of the 19th century
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Fragment of the historical map by J. H. Colton. The map depicts Caucasus region in 1856. Modern South Ossetia is not labeled. Modern North Ossetia is labeled as "Ossia".
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Map of South Ossetia (November 2004).

47.
Watertown, Massachusetts
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The Town of Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Greater Boston area, the population was 31,915 at the 2010 census. Watertown is one of fourteen Massachusetts municipalities that have applied for, Watertown is made up of six neighborhoods, Bemis, Brigham, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square and the West End. Archeological evidence suggests that Watertown was inhabited for thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from England, two tribes of Massachusett, the Pequossette and the Nonantum, had settlements on the banks of the river later called the Charles. The Pequossette built a weir to trap herring at the site of the current Watertown Dam. The annual fish migration, as both alewife and blueback herring swim upstream from their home in the sea to spawn in the fresh water where they were hatched. Watertown, first known as Saltonstall Plantation, was one of the earliest of the Massachusetts Bay settlements and it was begun early in 1630 by a group of settlers led by Richard Saltonstall and George Phillips and officially incorporated that same year. The alternate spelling Waterton is seen in early documents. The first buildings were upon land now included within the limits of Cambridge known as Gerrys Landing, for its first quarter century Watertown ranked next to Boston in population and area. Since then its limits have been greatly reduced, thrice portions have been added to Cambridge, and it has contributed territory to form the new towns of Weston, Waltham, Lincoln and Belmont. As early as the close of the 17th century, Watertown was the horse and cattle market in New England and was known for its fertile gardens. Here about 1632 was erected the first gristmill in the colony, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, after adjournment from Concord, met from April to July 1775 in the First Parish Church, the site of which is marked by a monument. The Massachusetts General Court held its sessions here from 1775 to 1778, committees met in the nearby Edmund Fowle House. Boston town meetings were held here during the siege of Boston, from 1832 to 1834 Theodore Parker conducted a private school here and his name is still preserved in the Parker School, though the building no longer operates as a public school. The Arsenal is notable for being the site of a 1911 strike prompted by the management methods of operations research pioneer Frederick Winslow Taylor, taylors method, which he dubbed Scientific Management, broke tasks down into smaller components. The strike and its causes were controversial enough that they resulted in Congressional hearings in 1911, taylors methods spread widely, influencing such industrialists as Henry Ford, and the idea is one of the underlying inspirations of the factory line industrial method. The site includes the Arsenal Center for the Arts, an arts center that opened in 2005. The Arsenal is now owned by athenahealth, Arsenal Street features two shopping malls across the street from one another, with the Watertown Mall on one side, and The Arsenal Project of Watertown on the other

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Watertown's Main Street
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Saltonstall's landing spot in Watertown, also known as Elbridge Gerry Landing
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Edmund Fowle House, built in the 1700s and used by the Massachusetts government during the Revolutionary War
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Browne House, built ca. 1694

48.
Rhode Island House of Representatives
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The Rhode Island House of Representatives is the lower house of the Rhode Island General Assembly, the state legislature of the US state of Rhode Island. It is composed of 75 members, elected to two terms from 75 districts of equal population. The Rhode Island General Assembly does not have term limits, the House meets at the Rhode Island State Capitol in Providence. The Speaker of the House presides over the House of Representatives, the Speaker is elected by the majority party caucus followed by confirmation of the full House through the passage of a House Resolution. As well as presiding over the body, the Speaker is also the leadership position. Other House leaders, such as the majority and minority leaders, are elected by their party caucuses relative to their partys strength in the chamber. The current Speaker of the House is Democrat is Nicholas A. Mattiello and he was elected as Speaker of the House by his House colleagues on March 25,2014. First elected in November 2006 to Represent District 15 in Cranston & he served as the House Majority Leader from February 2010 until becoming Speaker and he replaced former Speaker Gordon D. Fox of District 4, who was found to have stolen $108,000 in campaign contributions, the Speaker pro Tempore is Rep. Brian Patrick Kennedy. K. Joseph Shekarchi was elected by his fellow Democrats as the House Majority Leader on November 10,2016 and it is the second ranking position in the House Leadership after the Speaker. He has served the residents of District 23 in Warwick since being elected in November 2012, the Republican Minority Leader is Patricia Morgan of District 26. She was elected House Minority Leader, the highest ranking Republican in the House and this list is of members elected in November 2016, to serve in the 2017–18 biennium

Rhode Island House of Representatives
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Rhode Island House of Representatives

49.
Barack Obama
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Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He is the first African American to have served as president and he previously served in the U. S. Senate representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008, and in the Illinois State Senate from 1997 to 2004. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, two years after the territory was admitted to the Union as the 50th state and he grew up mostly in Hawaii, but also spent one year of his childhood in Washington State and four years in Indonesia. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago, in 1988 Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he became a civil rights attorney and professor, Obama represented the 13th District for three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, when he ran for the U. S. Senate. In 2008, Obama was nominated for president, a year after his campaign began and he was elected over Republican John McCain, and was inaugurated on January 20,2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, during his first two years in office, Obama signed many landmark bills. Main reforms were the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, after a lengthy debate over the national debt limit, Obama signed the Budget Control and the American Taxpayer Relief Acts. In foreign policy, Obama increased U. S. troop levels in Afghanistan, reduced nuclear weapons with the U. S. -Russian New START treaty, and ended military involvement in the Iraq War. He ordered military involvement in Libya in opposition to Muammar Gaddafi, after winning re-election over Mitt Romney, Obama was sworn in for a second term in 2013. Obama also advocated gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and issued wide-ranging executive actions concerning climate change and immigration. In foreign policy, Obama ordered military intervention in Iraq in response to gains made by ISIL after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, Obama left office in January 2017 with a 60% approval rating. He currently resides in Washington, D. C and his presidential library will be built in Chicago. Obama was born on August 4,1961, at Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu and he is the only President to have been born in Hawaii. He was born to a mother and a black father. His mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas, of mostly English descent, with some German, Irish, Scottish, Swiss and his father, Barack Obama Sr. was a married Luo Kenyan man from Nyangoma Kogelo. Obamas parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the couple married in Wailuku, Hawaii on February 2,1961, six months before Obama was born. In late August 1961, Obamas mother moved him to the University of Washington in Seattle for a year

Barack Obama
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Barack Obama
Barack Obama
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Obama with his half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, mother Ann Dunham and grandfather Stanley Dunham, in Honolulu, Hawaii
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Obama and others celebrate the naming of a street in Chicago after ShoreBank co-founder Milton Davis in 1998
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Obama in his official portrait as a member of the United States Senate

50.
U.S. Congress
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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D. C, both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, Congress has 535 voting members,435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members in addition to its 435 voting members and these members can, however, sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a single constituency, known as a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by using the United States Census results. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two senators, currently, there are 100 senators representing the 50 states. Each senator is elected at-large in their state for a term, with terms staggered. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process—legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers, however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate ratifies treaties and approves presidential appointments while the House initiates revenue-raising bills, the House initiates impeachment cases, while the Senate decides impeachment cases. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required before a person can be forcibly removed from office. The term Congress can also refer to a meeting of the legislature. A Congress covers two years, the current one, the 115th Congress, began on January 3,2017, the Congress starts and ends on the third day of January of every odd-numbered year. Members of the Senate are referred to as senators, members of the House of Representatives are referred to as representatives, congressmen, or congresswomen. One analyst argues that it is not a solely reactive institution but has played a role in shaping government policy and is extraordinarily sensitive to public pressure. Several academics described Congress, Congress reflects us in all our strengths, Congress is the governments most representative body. Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the public policy issues of the day. —Smith, Roberts, and Wielen Congress is constantly changing and is constantly in flux, most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent

U.S. Congress
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United States Congress
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In 1868, this committee of representatives prosecuted president Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial, but the Senate did not convict him.
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George Washington presiding over the signing of the United States Constitution.

51.
Fresno County
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Fresno County, officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the northern portion of the U. S. state, California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 930,450, the county seat is Fresno, the fifth-largest city in California. Fresno County comprises the Fresno, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is part of the Fresno-Madera and it is located in the Central Valley, south of Stockton and north of Bakersfield. The area now known as Fresno County is the homeland of Yokuts and Mono peoples. In 1846, this became part of the United States as a result of the Mexican War. Fresno County was formed in 1856 from parts of Mariposa, Merced, Fresno is Spanish for ash tree and it was in recognition of the abundance of the shrubby local Ash, Fraxinus dipetala, growing along the San Joaquin River that it received its name. Parts of Fresno Countys territory were given to Mono County in 1861, the settling of Fresno County was not without its conflicts, land disputes, and other natural disasters. Floods caused immeasurable damage elsewhere and fires also plagued the settlers of Fresno County, in 1882, the greatest of the early day fires wiped out an entire block of the city of Fresno, and was followed by another devastating blaze in 1883. At the same time residents brought irrigation, electricity, and extensive agriculture to the area, moses Church developed the first canals, called Church Ditches, for irrigation. These canals allowed extensive cultivation of wheat, francis Eisen, leader of the wine industry in Fresno County, also began the raisin industry in 1875, when he accidentally let some of his grapes dry on the vine. Easterby and Clovis Cole developed extensive grain and cattle ranches and these and other citizens laid the groundwork for the cultivation of Fresno County – now one of the nations leading agricultural regions. In more recent times became a major crop in Fresno and the southern San Joaquin Valley. The Coalinga field continues to produce oil, and is currently the eighth-largest field in the state. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 6,011 square miles. Major watercourses are the San Joaquin, Kings River, Delta-Mendota Canal, Big Creek, Friant Kern Canal, Helm Canal and it is bordered on the west by the Coast Range and on the east by the Sierra Nevada. It is the center of an agricultural area, known as the most agriculturally rich county in the United States. The county withdrew 3.7 billion US gallons of water per day in 2000. Fresno County is part of the Madera AVA wine region, Fresno was actually named after two particular ash trees that grew near the town of Minkler on the Kings River, one of which is still alive and standing

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The Fresno County courthouse in June 2007

52.
Highland, California
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Highland is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population in 2010 was 53,104, up from 44,605 at the 2000 census, the term Highland also refers to a geographical area of the city of San Bernardino, and parts of unincorporated San Bernardino County. Highland is located at 34°7′6″N 117°12′9″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.9 square miles. 18.8 square miles of it is land and 0.1 square miles of it is water, the 2010 United States Census reported that Highland had a population of 53,104. The population density was 2,811.3 people per square mile. The racial makeup of Highland was 27,836 White,5,887 African American,542 Native American,3,954 Asian,168 Pacific Islander,11,826 from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 25,556 persons. The Census reported that 52,932 people lived in households,76 lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, there were 1,129 unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 109 same-sex married couples or partnerships. 2,254 households were made up of individuals and 757 had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 3.42. There were 12,542 families, the family size was 3.74. The median age was 30.6 years, for every 100 females there were 95.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.3 males, there were 16,578 housing units at an average density of 877.6 per square mile, of which 10,106 were owner-occupied, and 5,365 were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2. 2%, the vacancy rate was 8. 7%. 33,361 people lived in owner-occupied housing units and 19,571 people lived in housing units. According to the 2010 United States Census, Highland had a household income of $57,313. As of the census of 2000, there were 44,605 people,13,478 households, the population density was 3,273.3 inhabitants per square mile. There were 14,858 housing units at a density of 1,090.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 56. 3% White,12. 1% African American,1. 3% Native American,6. 1% Asian,0. 3% Pacific Islander,18. 6% from other races, and 5. 2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 36. 6% of the population,15. 4% of all households were made up of individuals and 4. 8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older

Highland, California
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Santa Ana River Bridge

53.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital

Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Los Angeles

54.
Internally displaced person
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An internally displaced person is someone who is forced to flee his or her home but who remains within his or her countrys borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the definitions of a refugee. At the end of 2014, it was estimated there were 38.2 million IDPs worldwide, the highest level since 1989, the first year for which global statistics on IDPs are available. The countries with the largest IDP populations were Syria, Colombia, Iraq, in this way, the document intentionally steers toward flexibility rather than legal precision as the words in particular indicate that the list of reasons for displacement is not exhaustive. However, as Erin Mooney has pointed out, global statistics on internal displacement generally count only IDPs uprooted by conflict, moreover, a recent study has recommended that the IDP concept should be defined even more narrowly, to be limited to persons displaced by violence. It is very difficult to get accurate figures for internally displaced persons because populations arent constant, IDPs may be returning home while others are fleeing, others may periodically return to IDP camps to take advantage of humanitarian aid. While the case of IDPs in large camps such as those in Darfur, western Sudan, are relatively well-reported, it is difficult to assess those IDPs who flee to larger towns. It is necessary in many instances to supplement official figures with additional information obtained from operational humanitarian organizations on the ground, thus, the 24.5 million figure must be treated as an estimate. Additionally, most official figures include those displaced by conflict or natural disasters. Development-induced IDPs often are not included in assessments and it has been estimated that between 70 and 80% of all IDPs are women and children. 50% of internally displaced people and refugees were thought to be in areas in 2010. A2013 study found that these protracted urban displacements had not been given due weight by international aid, the study argues that this protracted urban displacement needs a fundamental change in the approach to those who are displaced and their host societies. They note that re-framing responses to urban displacement will also involve human rights and development actors, an updated country by country breakdown can be found online. The problem of protecting and assisting IDPs is not a new issue, in international law it is the responsibility of the government concerned to provide assistance and protection for the IDPs in their country. It has been estimated that some 5 million IDPs in 11 countries are without any significant humanitarian assistance from their governments, unlike the case of refugees, there is no international humanitarian institution which has the overall responsibility of protecting and assisting the refugees as well as the internally displaced. A number of organizations have stepped into the breach in specific circumstances. guided by the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. The UNHCR has traditionally argued that it not have a general competence for IDPs even though at least since 1972 it had relief. However, in cases where there is a specific request by the UN Secretary General, in 2005 it was helping some 5.6 million IDPs, but only about 1.1 million in Africa

55.
Mount Mrav
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The Murovdağ or Mrav is the highest mountain range in the Lesser Caucasus. The range is about 70 kilometres long, and Gamish Mountain is its highest peak at 3,724 metres and it is made up mainly of Jurassic, Cretaceous and Paleogene rocks. The Murovdağ ridge extends north from Hinaldag Peak through Gamish Mountain, the northeastern slope features a group of scenic lakes, including Göygöl near the northern slope. The Karabakh Plateau extends from the south of Murovdağ, fir and spruce forests are spread as far southeast as the Murovdağ. The summer mountain pastures of Murovdağ were traditionally used by Azerbaijani, the mountain ridge forms the northern part of the line of control separating the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from Azerbaijan. Its southern slopes run through the Martakert region of Nagorno-Karabakh

56.
Steppes
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In South Africa they are referred to as Veld. The prairie is an example of a steppe, though it is not usually called such and it may be semi-desert, or covered with grass or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude. The term is used to denote the climate encountered in regions too dry to support a forest. The soil is typically of chernozem type, steppes are usually characterized by a semi-arid and continental climate. Extremes can be recorded in the summer of up to 45 °C and in winter, besides this huge difference between summer and winter, the differences between day and night are also very great. In the highlands of Mongolia,30 °C can be reached during the day with sub-zero °C readings at night, the mid-latitude steppes can be summarized by hot summers and cold winters, averaging 250–510 mm of precipitation per year. Precipitation level alone is not what defines a steppe climate, potential evapotranspiration must also be taken into account, the Eurasian Grass-Steppe of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands had a role in the spread of the horse, the wheel, and the Indo-European languages. The Indo-European expansion and diverse invasions of horse archer civilizations of the steppe eventually led to, the Pannonian Plain is another steppe region in eastern Europe, primarily Hungary. Another large steppe area is located in the central United States, western Canada, the shortgrass prairie steppe is the westernmost part of the Great Plains region. The Channeled Scablands in Southern British Columbia and Washington State is an example of a region in North America outside of the Great Plains. In South America, cold steppe can be found in Patagonia, relatively small steppe areas can be found in the interior of the South Island of New Zealand. In Asia, a subtropical steppe can be found in semi-arid lands that fringe the Thar Desert of the Indian subcontinent, in Australia, subtropical steppe can be found in a belt surrounding the most severe deserts of the continent and around the Musgrave Ranges. Ecology and Conservation of Steppe-land Birds by Manuel B. Morales, Santi Mañosa, Jordi Camprodón, international Symposium on Ecology and Conservation of steppe-land birds

57.
Alpine tundra
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Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high altitude. The high altitude causes an adverse climate, which is too cold, Alpine tundra transitions to sub-alpine forests below the tree line, stunted forests occurring at the forest-tundra ecotone are known as Krummholz. With increasing elevation it ends at the line where snow. Alpine tundra occurs in mountains worldwide, the flora of the alpine tundra is characterized by dwarf shrubs close to the ground. The cold climate of the tundra is caused by the lack of greenhouse effect at high altitude. Alpine tundra occurs at high altitude at any latitude. Portions of Montane grasslands and shrublands ecoregions worldwide include alpine tundra, Alpine tundra occupies high-mountain summits, slopes, and ridges above timberline. Aspect plays a role as well, the treeline often occurs at higher elevations on warmer equator-facing slopes, with limited access to infrastructure, only a handful of human communities exist in alpine zones. Many are small and have heavily specialized economies, often relying on such as agriculture, mining. An example of such a town is La Rinconada, Peru, a gold-mining town. A counterexample is El Alto, Bolivia, at 4,150 metres, which has a diverse service and manufacturing economy. Alpine climate is the weather for the alpine tundra. The climate becomes colder at high elevations—this characteristic is described by the rate of air, air tends to get colder as it rises. The dry adiabatic lapse rate is 10 °C per km of elevation or altitude, therefore, moving up 100 metres on a mountain is roughly equivalent to moving 80 kilometers towards the pole. This relationship is only approximate, however, since local factors such as proximity to oceans can drastically modify the climate, typical high-elevation growing seasons range from 45 to 90 days, with average summer temperatures near 10 °C. Growing season temperatures frequently fall below freezing, and frost occurs throughout the season in many areas. Precipitation occurs mainly as snow, but soil water availability is highly variable with season, location. For example, snowfields commonly accumulate on the lee sides of ridges while ridgelines may remain nearly snow free due to redistribution by wind, some alpine habitats may be up to 70% snow free in winter

Alpine tundra
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Hikers traversing the Franconia Ridge in the White Mountains, much of which is in the alpine zone.
Alpine tundra
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Alpine tundra in North-Western Transbaikalia
Alpine tundra
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Summer in Northern Sweden's Tarfala Valley with its alpine climate
Alpine tundra
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This alpine valley is entirely above the tree line

58.
Tundra
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In physical geography, tundra is a type of biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr uplands, there are three types of tundra, Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, and Antarctic tundra. In tundra, the vegetation is composed of shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses. Scattered trees grow in tundra regions. The ecotone between the tundra and the forest is known as the line or timberline. Arctic tundra occurs in the far Northern Hemisphere, north of the taiga belt, the word tundra usually refers only to the areas where the subsoil is permafrost, or permanently frozen soil. Permafrost tundra includes vast areas of northern Russia and Canada, the polar tundra is home to several peoples who are mostly nomadic reindeer herders, such as the Nganasan and Nenets in the permafrost area. Arctic tundra contains areas of landscape and is frozen for much of the year. The soil there is frozen from 25–90 cm down, and it is impossible for trees to grow, instead, bare and sometimes rocky land can only support low growing plants such as moss, heath, and lichen. There are two seasons, winter and summer, in the polar tundra areas. During the winter it is cold and dark, with the average temperature around −28 °C. However, extreme temperatures on the tundra do not drop as low as those experienced in taiga areas further south. During the summer, temperatures rise somewhat, and the top layer of seasonally-frozen soil melts, the tundra is covered in marshes, lakes, bogs and streams during the warm months. Generally daytime temperatures during the rise to about 12 °C. Arctic tundras are sometimes the subject of conservation programs. In Canada and Russia, many of areas are protected through a national Biodiversity Action Plan. Tundra tends to be windy, with winds often blowing upwards of 50–100 km/h, however, in terms of precipitation, it is desert-like, with only about 15–25 cm falling per year. Although precipitation is light, evaporation is also relatively minimal, there is a natural pattern of accumulation of fuel and wildfire which varies depending on the nature of vegetation and terrain

59.
Shahumyan Region
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The Shahumyan Region is a disputed region, formerly a district of Azerbaijan SSR outside Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Before the Nagorno-Karabakh War of the 1990s, the district had a substantial Armenian population, the eastern part of the territory remains under the control of Azerbaijan and is incorporated into Goranboy District, but the area is claimed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Shahumian Region has 16 communities of which 1 is considered urban and 16 are rural, during Soviet times in the area was renamed after the Armenian Bolshevik Stepan Shahumyan, its administrative center taking the same name. Approximately 17,000 Armenians living in Shahumians twenty-three villages were deported out of the region, in December 1991 with the Soviet Union imploding, Shahumian was claimed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and became the focus for considerable fighting. This reached a climax in summer 1992 when most of the area was retaken by the Azerbaijan army, damage was severe and the Armenian population fled. The historical name of the town of Shahumian was abolished and renamed to Aşağı Ağcakənd in 1992 and it has been partly re-populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis, some of which are refugees. During Operation Ring, Soviet forces acting in conjunction with the local Azerbaijani OMON forcibly deported Armenians living in the villages of the region of Shahumyan, the operation involved the use of ground troops, military, armored vehicles and artillery. The deportations of the Armenian civilians were carried out with gross human rights violations documented by human rights organizations. Armeniapedia - Rediscovering Armenia - Nagorno-Karabakh

60.
Tartar (rayon)
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Tartar is a rayon of Azerbaijan. Most of it has been under the control of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since the Nagorno-Karabakh War, IDPs from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding occupied regions were moved to Tartar rayon from tent settlements around the country. The IDPs live in new houses built by the government

Tartar (rayon)
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Map of Azerbaijan showing Tartar (red and dark green) rayon. The dark green is under control of the NKR.

61.
Martakert (town)
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Aghdara or Martakert is the de facto administrative center of Martakert Region of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and a de jure town in the Tartar District of Azerbaijan. The town is de facto part of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since the end of the 1991-94 Nagorno-Karabakh War, the climate here is classified as Cfa by the Köppen-Geiger system. World Gazetteer, Azerbaijan – World-Gazetteer. com Aghdara at GEOnet Names Server

62.
Khojali Rayon
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Khojali, also called Khojaly, Khodjaly and Hojaly, is a rayon in the Nagorno-Karabakh break away region of Azerbaijan, now under the control of armed forces of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The region was once a site of prehistoric Khojaly-Gadabay culture and it was the location of the Khojaly Massacre in February 1992. The local government has designated it as Askeran Region, ramil Usubov - the current Minister of Internal Affairs of Republic of Azerbaijan. Elman Mammadov - Azerbaijani politician who serves as the Member of National Assembly of Azerbaijan from 124th Shusha-Fizuli-Khojali-Khojavend district, hes a veteran of Nagorno-Karabakh War. Alif Hajiyev - Azerbaijani officer, Commandant of Khojaly Airport and National Hero of Azerbaijan, tofig Huseynov - Azerbaijani army commander

Khojali Rayon
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Map of Azerbaijan showing Khojali rayon

63.
Agdam Rayon
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Agdam is a rayon in southwestern Azerbaijan. Its capital is the city of Alibeili and it is a disputed region, with the western half occupied by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The last census indisputably able to take a full counting of the area was in 1979, the rayons area was increased after the dissolution of USSR from 1,093 to 1,150 km2. 2009,175,400, according to the results of the most recent census of Azerbaijan. The western part of the rayon is not controlled by Azerbaijani government, IDPs from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding occupied regions were moved to Agdam rayon from tent settlements around the country. The IDPs live in new houses built by the government, Nagorno-Karabakh War Report by Célia Chauffour on Agdam for Caucaz. com HRW report on the conflict

Agdam Rayon
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Map of Azerbaijan showing Agdam Rayon

64.
Askeran (town)
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Askeran is a town in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the administrative centre of the Askeran Province which is coextensive with Khojali Rayon of Azerbaijan. Askeran fortress is situated in the suburb of the town. The fortress was built for defense of Shusha, the fortress was widely used during the Russo-Persian War. In the 1988 in the clash in this city was one of the points of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict resulting in Nagorno-Karabakh War. The fortress of Askeran was renovated in 2002, Askeran at GEOnet Names Server World Gazetteer, Azerbaijan – World-Gazetteer. com Population of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic

65.
Martuni Region
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Martuni Region is a region of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, corresponding to the northeastern half of the Azerbaijani district of Khojavend. The western half has many hills and small mountains, full of villages, while the eastern half is very flat, with fewer villages. The farthest parts to the east remain under the control of Azerbaijan, historically, this area was also known as Myus Haband and Varand. Martuni Region has 36 communities of which 1 is considered urban and 35 are rural and it is a successor to the Martuni District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Amaras Monastery, one of the oldest monasteries in Greater Armenia

Martuni Region
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Martuni Մարտունի

66.
Khojavend (town)
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Khojavend is a town and the provincial capital of Martuni Region of the de facto independent but unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It is located approximately 41 kilometers east of the capital of Stepanakert. It has a population of 5,700 as of 2015, excavations in Khojavand have uncovered a number of tombs dating to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Martuni is also home to several ruined churches and remains of settlements. During Soviet times, Khojavand was the capital of the district located in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The population of the town, grouped into kolkhozes, largely occupied itself with raising livestock, grape growing, wheat cultivation, Martuni, and the district itself, became a frontline city during the latter stages of the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Martuni is twinned with, Les Pennes-Mirabeau, France, Les Pennes-Mirabeau and Martuni became sister cities on 11 June 2013

67.
Hadrut Region
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Hadrut is a province of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It forms the border of Nagorno-Karabakh, and one of the most mountainous parts. Villages are primarily found along two river valleys and scattered in lower elevations on the southern fringe. Excavations of the Azokh Cave show that humans have inhabited this area for tens of thousands of years, Hadrut province has 30 communities of which 1 is considered urban and 29 are rural. The most important problems are drinking and irrigation water, and internal communication roads, some villages are lacking a telephone network and some have difficulties with watching Armenian TV channels. More than 340 people of Hadrut Region fell victims during the Nagorno-Karabakh war, nearly 30% of its area has been ruined and burnt several times

68.
Jabrayil Rayon
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Jabrayil is a rayon of Azerbaijan. Almost the entire region was occupied in 1993 and has controlled by the breakway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. According to the last 1989 Soviet census, there were 49,156 people living in the rayon, jabrail rayon has productive soils, and before the war the population was mostly involved in agriculture. Jabrail shares its borders with Iran. State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan Republic

Jabrayil Rayon
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Map of Azerbaijan showing Jabrayil Rayon

69.
Kashatagh Region
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Kashatagh Region is one of the seven regions of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic which is de facto independent de jure part of Azerbaijan Republic and the largest by area. The population as of 2013 was 9,656, Kashatagh Region has 54 communities of which 3 are considered urban and 51 are rural. Kashtagh borders Shahumyan Region in the north, Martakert Region in the north-east, Askeran Region, Shushi Region, iran in the south and Armenia to the west. The territory on which Kashatag Region was subsequently formed was part of the Syunik Province of the Kingdom of Armenia, in the Middle Ages, there existed Armenian principality. In the valley of the river Akera was the most famous principality Kashatag, the territory remained predominantly Armenian-up to Russian-Persian wars and the South Caucasus invasion of the Ottoman army in the 18th century. Artsakh Armenian principalities, including Kashatag principality, supported Russia in the war, kovsakan is the second largest city in Kashatagh Region after the city of Berdzor. Mher Arakelyan from the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Razmik Mirzoyan, non-partisan, Kashatagh Region has the highest birth rate in the entire Caucasus region. The birth rate was measured at 29.3 per 1,000 in 2010, on the other hand, the Russian republic of Chechenya, which had a birth rate of 28.9 per 1,000 in 2011 could manage only the second spot. David Babayan, spokesperson of the Karabakh Armenian leader Bako Sahakyan, Kashatagh Region Demographic Crisis Declining Population Map

70.
Berdzor City
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Lachin or Berdzor, formerly Abdallyar, Datschin) is a town internationally recognized de jure as part of Azerbaijan, but currently controlled by the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Since 1992 the area has been under the control of the NKR, which has renamed the town Berdzor, the government of Azerbaijan considers it to be the regional center of its Lachin Rayon. The town and its surrounding region serve as the strategic Lachin corridor connecting the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic with Armenia and it was originally known as Abdalyar or Abdallyar. It was granted town status in 1923 and renamed Lachin in 1926, the town of Lachin on July 7,1923 became the administrative center of Kurdistansky Uyezd, often known as Red Kurdistan, before it was moved to Shusha. It was dissolved on April 8,1929, Kurdish schools, on May 15,1992, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army took control of the first land-corridor to Armenia. Previously, on May 13,1992 Turkey threatened Armenia that, It would intervene militarily if Shusha, Russia responded by signing a military agreement with Armenia, pledging military aid if its security was threatened. On May 20,1992, Turkey reassured Russia that it would not intervene militarily, thus, after three years of blockade, a land bridge linking the Republic of Armenia with the territory of Nagorno Karabakh was established. In the fall of 1992, Azerbaijani forces tried to control over Lachin. All of Lachins Azerbaijani and Kurdish population fled as a result of the fall of the region to ethnic Armenian forces, the town is scenically built on the side of a mountain on the left bank of Hakari River. Lachin town and the surrounding rayon were the location of fighting during the 1990-1994 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Lachin is the most important town under Armenian control because of the Lachin corridor, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group co-chairs noted that Lachin has been treated as a separate case in previous negotiations. This is because Lachin is Nagorno Karabakhs humanitarian and security corridor, without it, Nagorno-Karabakh would remain an isolated enclave. The Lachin corridor and the Kelbajar district have been at the center of Armenian demands during the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks with Azerbaijan, on 16 June 2015 European Court of Human Rights passed a judgement in the case of ″Chiragov and Others v. The Court confirmed that Armenia exercised effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories, Berdzor is the capital of Kashatagh Region. Berdzor is twinned with, Highland, California Lachin corridor Е, pictures of Lachin Demographic Crisis in Lachin More information about Lachin from Armeniapedia. com Lachin

Berdzor City
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Berdzor

71.
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies
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The Tumo Center for Creative Technologies is a free of charge digital media learning center in Yerevan, Armenia. Tumo is a venture founded by Sam and Sylva Simonian who fully fund its educational program through the Simonian Educational Foundation. The initial impetus behind Tumo was to create a hub for education. Various ideas were considered in the context of a mixed use technology, the plans eventually settled on building an after-school center for teenagers. Construction started in 2003 and ended in 2009-2010, tumos grand opening took place on August 14,2011, with an open-air concert featuring rock musicians Serj Tankian and the Dorians. Among the famous visitors of Tumo Center in Yerevan were Ian Gillan, Kanye West, George Clooney, Tumo is the creation of Inet Technologies co-founder Sam Simonian and his wife Sylva. The Simonian Foundation fully funds the center, its programs, marie Lou Papazian is CEO of the Simonian Educational Foundation and Managing Director of Tumo. In addition to her responsibilities in managing the center, she led the design and construction management of the interior architecture. She has a degree in Education from the Columbia Teachers College. Tumo’s Board of Advisors is made up of professionals from North America, members include Twitters Vice President of Platform Engineering Raffi Krikorian, Pixar’s Katherine Sarafian, System of a Down’s lead vocalist Serj Tankian, and Industrial Toys’ Alex Seropian. Board of Advisors Students at Tumo advance through the learning program based on their individual preferences. Within that flexible framework, they work towards very specific learning targets organized around four areas, animation, game development, web development. Tumo members are encouraged to get exposure to all four of Tumo’s focus areas. In addition to instruction in its focus areas, the Tumo curriculum covers a set of supporting technical, artistic. These include computer programming, 3D modeling, 2D graphics, drawing, music, writing, online literacy, members create their own personal learning plans as a path through the Tumo World, a game-like virtual environment designed to facilitate navigating the multifaceted curriculum. Self-paced, individual and team activities alternate with hands-on workshops, Tumo’s flagship location in Yerevan occupies over 6,000 square meters on the first two floors of a modern building. This space is designed to fit the flexibility and transparency of the Tumo learning system. The building’s other four floors provide office space to technology and media companies that have the potential of becoming partners in Tumo’s educational mission, the rental income from these commercial tenants ensures the sustainability of the Tumo program

Tumo Center for Creative Technologies
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Tumo Center
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies
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Sam Simonian at an AGBU panel discussion in Yerevan (April 2015).
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies
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Full house season at Tumo
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies
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The Tumo Center is situated along the Hrazdan River gorge, adjacent to Tumanyan Park.

72.
Qashatagh Province
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Kashatagh Region is one of the seven regions of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic which is de facto independent de jure part of Azerbaijan Republic and the largest by area. The population as of 2013 was 9,656, Kashatagh Region has 54 communities of which 3 are considered urban and 51 are rural. Kashtagh borders Shahumyan Region in the north, Martakert Region in the north-east, Askeran Region, Shushi Region, iran in the south and Armenia to the west. The territory on which Kashatag Region was subsequently formed was part of the Syunik Province of the Kingdom of Armenia, in the Middle Ages, there existed Armenian principality. In the valley of the river Akera was the most famous principality Kashatag, the territory remained predominantly Armenian-up to Russian-Persian wars and the South Caucasus invasion of the Ottoman army in the 18th century. Artsakh Armenian principalities, including Kashatag principality, supported Russia in the war, kovsakan is the second largest city in Kashatagh Region after the city of Berdzor. Mher Arakelyan from the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Razmik Mirzoyan, non-partisan, Kashatagh Region has the highest birth rate in the entire Caucasus region. The birth rate was measured at 29.3 per 1,000 in 2010, on the other hand, the Russian republic of Chechenya, which had a birth rate of 28.9 per 1,000 in 2011 could manage only the second spot. David Babayan, spokesperson of the Karabakh Armenian leader Bako Sahakyan, Kashatagh Region Demographic Crisis Declining Population Map

73.
Russians
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Russians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. The majority of Russians inhabit the state of Russia, while notable minorities exist in Ukraine, Kazakhstan. A large Russian diaspora exists all over the world, with numbers in the United States, Germany, Israel. Russians are the most numerous group in Europe. They are predominantly Orthodox Christians by religion, the Russian language is official in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and also spoken as a secondary language in many former Soviet states. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians. One is русские, which most often means ethnic Russians, another is россияне, which means citizens of Russia. The former word refers to ethnic Russians, regardless of what country they live in, under certain circumstances this term may or may not extend to denote members of other Russian-speaking ethnic groups from Russia, or from the former Soviet Union. The latter word refers to all people holding citizenship of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity, translations into other languages often do not distinguish these two groups. The name of the Russians derives from the Rus people, the name Rus would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden, Ruotsi and Rootsi. According to other theories the name Rus is derived from Proto-Slavic *roud-s-ь, the modern Russians formed from two groups of East Slavic tribes, Northern and Southern. The tribes involved included the Krivichs, Ilmen Slavs, Radimichs, Vyatiches, genetic studies show that modern Russians do not differ significantly from Belarusians and Ukrainians. Some ethnographers, like Zelenin, affirm that Russians are more similar to Belarusians, such Uralic peoples included the Merya and the Muromians. Outside archaeological remains, little is known about the predecessors to Russians in general prior to 859 AD when the Primary Chronicle starts its records and it is thought that by 600 AD, the Slavs had split linguistically into southern, western, and eastern branches. Later, both Belarusians and South Russians formed on this ethnic linguistic ground, the same Slavic ethnic population also settled the present-day Tver Oblast and the region of Beloozero. With the Uralic substratum, they formed the tribes of the Krivichs, in 2010, the worlds Russian population was 129 million people of which 86% were in Russia,11. 5% in the CIS and Baltic countries, with a further 2. 5% living in other countries. Roughly 111 million ethnic Russians live in Russia, 80% of whom live in the European part of Russia, ethnic Russians historically migrated throughout the area of former Russian Empire and Soviet Union, sometimes encouraged to re-settle in borderlands by the Tsarist and later Soviet government. On some occasions ethnic Russian communities, such as Lipovans who settled in the Danube delta or Doukhobors in Canada, after the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War starting in 1917, many Russians were forced to leave their homeland fleeing the Bolshevik regime, and millions became refugees

74.
Yezidis
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The Yazidis are an ethnically Kurdish religious community or an ethno-religious group indigenous to northern Mesopotamia who are strictly endogamous. Their religion, Yazidism is linked to ancient Mesopotamian religions and combines aspects of Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity, Yazidis who marry non-Yazidis are automatically considered to be converted to the religion of their spouse and therefore are not permitted to call themselves Yazidis. They live primarily in the Nineveh Province of Iraq, additional communities in Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria have been in decline since the 1990s as a result of significant migration to Europe, especially to Germany. The Yazidis cultural practices are observably Kurdish, and almost all speak Kurmanji. The Yazidis are monotheists, believing in God as creator of the world, which he has placed under the care of seven holy beings or angels, the chief of whom is Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel. This belief has been linked by some people to Sufi mystical reflections on Iblis, persecution of Yazidis has continued in their home communities within the borders of modern Iraq, under fundamentalist Sunni Muslim revolutionaries. On 7 April 2007 a crowd of up to 2000 Yazidi stoned 17-year-old Iraqi of the Yazidi faith Dua Khalil Aswad to death, rumors that the stoning was connected to her alleged conversion to Islam prompted reprisals against Yazidis by Sunnis, including the 2007 Mosul massacre. Beginning in August 2014, the Yazidis were targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq, historically, the Yazidis lived primarily in communities in locales that are in present-day Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, and also had significant numbers in Armenia, Georgia and Iran. However, events since the 20th century have resulted in considerable demographic shift in these areas as well as mass emigration, as a result, population estimates are unclear in many regions, and estimates of the size of the total population vary. The bulk of the Yazidi population lives in Iraq, where make up an important minority community. Estimates of the size of these vary significantly, between 70,000 and 500,000. They are particularly concentrated in northern Iraq in the Nineveh Province, the two biggest communities are in Shekhan, northeast of Mosul, and in Sinjar, at the Syrian border 80 kilometres west of Mosul. In Shekhan is the shrine of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir at Lalish, during the 20th century, the Shekhan community struggled for dominance with the more conservative Sinjar community. The demographic profile has changed considerably since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. Yazidis in Syria live primarily in two communities, one in the Al-Jazira area and the other in the Kurd-Dagh, population numbers for the Syrian Yazidi community are unclear. In 1963, the community was estimated at about 10,000, according to the national census, there may be between about 12,000 and 15,000 Yazidis in Syria today, though more than half of the community may have emigrated from Syria since the 1980s. Estimates are further complicated by the arrival of as many as 50,000 Yazidi refugees from Iraq during the Iraq War, the Kurdish Yazidi community of Turkey declined precipitously during the 20th century. By 1982, the community had decreased to about 30,000, most of them have immigrated to Europe, particularly Germany, those who remain reside primarily in their former heartland of Tur Abdin

75.
Amaras Monastery
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It was a prominent religious and educational center in medieval Armenia. According to medieval chroniclers Faustus Byuzand and Movses Kaghankatvatsi, St. Gregory the Illuminator founded the Amaras Monastery at the start of the fourth century, Amaras was the burial place of St. Gregory the Illuminators grandson, St. Grigoris. A tomb built for his remains still survives under the apse of the church of St. Grigoris. At the beginning of the fifth century Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian Alphabet, the monastery was plundered in the thirteenth century by the Mongols, destroyed in 1387 during Tamerlanes invasion, and demolished again in the sixteenth century. It underwent radical restructuring in the quarter of the seventeenth century when the surviving defensive walls were constructed. Amaras was later abandoned, and in the first half of the century the monastery served as a frontier fortress for Russian imperial troops. The Armenian Apostolic Church reclaimed the monastery in 1848, the monasterys church appears to have been severely damaged during the period of military occupation, to the extent that a new church had to be constructed on the site of the old one. This new church, dedicated to St. Grigoris, was built in 1858 and it still survives and is a three-nave basilica constructed from bright white stone. The monastery was abandoned during the Soviet period, St. Grigoris was originally buried at the eastern end of the now vanished St. Gregory church. In 489 Vachagan III the Pious, king of Caucasian Albania, renovated Amaras, restoring the church, in later centuries a church was built over this chapel-tomb. Under the altar of the St. Grigoris church is a chamber reached at its western end by twin flights of steps. A blocked passage at its eastern end there was originally an entrance from that direction as well. The barrel-vaulted tomb chamber is 1. 9m wide,3. 75m long, the upper half of the structure originally projected 1.5 to 2m above ground level, but it is now entirely underground. Carved details date it stylistically to the 5th century, culture of Nagorno-Karabakh Amaras Monastery, official site 3D Model Gagik Arzumanyans photo gallery

Amaras Monastery
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The church of St. Grigoris of the Amaras Monastery (established in the 4th century, rebuilt in the 19th century)
Amaras Monastery
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Amaras' temple of Saint Grigoris

76.
Gandzasar monastery
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Gandzasar monastery is a 10th to 13th century Armenian monastery situated in the Mardakert district of de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Gandzasar means treasure mountain or hilltop treasure in Armenian, the monastery holds relics believed to belong to St. John the Baptist and his father St Zechariah. Gandzasar is now the seat of the Archbishop of Artsakh appointed by the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the monastery at Gandzasar was first mentioned in the tenth century. Gandzasar monastery became the headquarters of the Catholicosate of Aghvank, also known as the Holy See of Gandzasar, in the 16th century it became subordinate to the Etchmiadzin catholicosate. Many of its catholicoi were members of the Hasan-Jalal Dawla dynasty, the complex is protected by high walls. Within the complex is the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, the drum of its dome has exquisite bas-reliefs that depict the Crucifixion, Adam and Eve, and two ministers holding a model of the church above their heads as an offering to God. The bas-reliefs have been compared to the carvings of Aghtamar. Hovhannavank Monastery Harichavank Monastery Culture of Nagorno-Karabakh Yakobson, Anatoly L, “From the History of Medieval Armenian Architecture, the Monastery of Gandzasar, ” in, Studies in the History of Culture of the Peoples in the East. Gandzasar. com - Gandzasar Monastery, Nagorno Karabakh Republic Program about Gandzasar Monastery by Vem Radio

Gandzasar monastery
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Gandzasar
Gandzasar monastery
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Drum of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist

77.
Ghazanchetsots Cathedral
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The Holy Savior Cathedral, commonly known as Ghazanchetsots Cathedral is a major cathedral in Shusha, Nagorno-Karabakh. It is the seat of the Diocese of Artsakh of the Armenian Apostolic Church and it was consecrated in 1888 and is considered a landmark of Karabakh. It was damaged during the March 1920 massacre of Armenians of the city by Azerbaijanis, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War Azerbaijan used the cathedral as an armory, where hundreds of missiles were stored. It was restored in the aftermath of the war and reconsecrated in 1998, according to historical records a small basilica church stood on its place as of 1722. The bell tower of the cathedral was founded in 1858—10 years earlier than the church proper, the three floored bell tower was financed by the Khandamiriants family. The churchs construction began in 1868 and was completed in 1887 and its name comes from Ghazanchi, a village in Nakhichevan, migrants from which financed the churchs construction. It was designed by Simon Ter-Hakobian, the church was consecrated on September 20,1888 according to an inscription on upper part of the southern portal. The inscription reads, The majority of the Armenian population of Shusha was massacred or expelled in a March 1920 massacre, the cathedral was damaged and gradually declined. In the 1940s it was used as a granary and its dome and part of the walls surrounding it were destroyed in 1950s. It was then looted and its stones were used to build several houses in the Azerbaijani part of the city. By the 1970s the cathedral looked like it survived heavy shelling, Soviet and Azerbaijani authorities granted a permission to launch a restoration project of the cathedral in the 1980s under public pressure. The restoration began in 1981 and continued to till 1988 and was supervised by Volodya Babayan, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in February 1988 and Shushas Armenian minority was expelled from the city. The cathedral was turned into an armory, according to Armenian political analyst Levon Melik-Shahnazaryan the cathedral was set to fire three times between 1988 and 1991 using car tires. He wrote that by the time of its capture practically, only a skeleton had remained of the magnificent structure. Azerbaijanis dismantled the stone statues of angels on the bell tower and they reportedly sold off its bronze bell, which was later found in a market in Donetsk, Ukraine and was bought by an Armenian officer for 3 million rubles and sent it back to Armenia. When Shusha was captured by Armenian forces on May 9,1992, prior to the fall of Shusha, Azerbaijani forces stored hundreds of boxes of Grad missiles as the cathedral was safe from potential Armenian bombardment. Shusha was used as a base for shelling of Stepanakert, the largest city of Karabakh, Armenian volunteers, including noted activist Igor Muradyan, carried the wooden boxes of artillery and rocket shells out of the church immediately after the capture of the city. The flag of Armenia was raised on top of the dome by Armenian troops

Ghazanchetsots Cathedral
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The restored Cathedral of Ghazanchetsots and the bell-tower.
Ghazanchetsots Cathedral
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Ruins of the Armenian half of Shushi after the city's destruction by Azerbaijani army in March 1920. In the center: the defaced cathedral.
Ghazanchetsots Cathedral
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Looking up towards the dome of the cathedral

78.
Oriental Orthodox
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Oriental Orthodoxy has approximately 84 million adherents worldwide. Oriental Orthodox Churches uphold their own ancient ecclesiastic traditions of apostolic succession and these Churches rejected the definition of the two natures of Christ, known as the Chalcedonian Definition, which was issued by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Eastern Orthodox maintain numerous theological and ecclesiological similarities with the Oriental Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox Churches are in full communion with each other, but not with the Eastern Orthodox Church, despite the similar name. The schism between Oriental Orthodoxy and the Great Church was based on differences in Christology, the First Council of Nicaea, in 325, declared that Jesus Christ is God, that is to say, consubstantial with the Father. Later, the ecumenical council, the Council of Ephesus, declared that Jesus Christ, though divine as well as human, is only one being. Thus, the Council of Ephesus explicitly rejected Nestorianism, the Christological doctrine that Christ was two distinct beings, one divine and one human, who happened to inhabit the same body. The Churches that later became Oriental Orthodoxy were firmly anti-Nestorian, and those who opposed Chalcedon saw this as a concession to Nestorianism, or even as a conspiracy to convert the Church to Nestorianism by stealth. As a result, over the decades, they gradually separated from communion with the Great Church. Monophysitism was condemned as heretical alongside Nestorianism, and to accuse a church of being Monophysite is to accuse it of falling into the opposite extreme from Nestorianism, however, the Oriental Orthodox themselves reject this description as inaccurate, having officially condemned the teachings of both Nestorius and Eutyches. They define themselves as Miaphysite instead, holding that Christ has one nature, the schism between the Oriental Orthodox and the rest of Christendom occurred in the 5th century. They would accept only of or from two natures but not in two natures and it is not entirely clear that Nestorius himself was a Nestorian. The Oriental Orthodox churches were often called Monophysite, although they reject this label, as it is associated with Eutychian Monophysitism. It was not until 518 that the new Byzantine Emperor, Justin I, Justin ordered the replacement of all non-Chalcedonian bishops, including the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria. The extent of the influence of the Bishop of Rome in this demand has been a matter of debate, Justinian I also attempted to bring those monks who still rejected the decision of the Council of Chalcedon into communion with the greater church. The exact time of event is unknown, but it is believed to have been between 535 and 548. St Abraham of Farshut was summoned to Constantinople and he chose to bring with him four monks, upon arrival, Justinian summoned them and informed them that they would either accept the decision of the Council or lose their positions. Abraham refused to entertain the idea, theodora tried to persuade Justinian to change his mind, seemingly to no avail. Abraham himself stated in a letter to his monks that he preferred to remain in exile rather than subscribe to a faith which he believed to be contrary to that of Athanasius of Alexandria

79.
Orthodox Christianity
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Orthodoxy is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion. In the Christian sense the term means conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early Church, the first seven Ecumenical Councils were held between the years of 325 and 787 with the aim of formalizing accepted doctrines. In classical Christian usage, the term refers to the set of doctrines which were believed by the early Christians. A series of councils, also known as the First seven Ecumenical Councils, were held over a period of several centuries to try to formalize these doctrines. The most significant of these decisions was that between the Homoousian doctrine of Athanasius and Eustathius and the Heteroousian doctrine of Arius and Eusebius. The earliest recorded use of the term orthodox is in the Codex Iustinianus of 529–534, following the 1054 Great Schism, both the Western and Eastern Churches continued to consider themselves uniquely orthodox and catholic. Over time, the Western Church gradually identified with the Catholic label and this was in note of the fact that both Catholic and Orthodox were in use as ecclesiastical adjectives as early as the 2nd and 4th centuries respectively. Today the two largest Orthodox Christian communions are the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodoxy, Orthodox Judaism is split into various different movements and factions. They have different ways of interpreting and following the laws and traditions of Judaism, Orthodox Judaism is distinct from Conservative Judaism. The term Orthodox Islam generally refers to the teachings and religious practices of traditional Sunni Islam. The term Orthodox Hinduism commonly refers to the teachings and practices of Sanātanī. In this sense, the term has a pejorative connotation. Among various orthodoxies in distinctive fields, most common terms are, Political orthodoxy, Social orthodoxy, Economic orthodoxy, Scientific orthodoxy, Orthodoxy is opposed to heterodoxy or heresy. A deviation lighter than heresy is commonly called error, in the sense of not being enough to cause total estrangement. Sometimes error is used to cover both full heresies and minor errors. The concept of orthodoxy is prevalent in many forms of organized monotheism, syncretism, for example, plays a much wider role in non-monotheistic religion. The prevailing governing norm within polytheism is often rather than the right belief of orthodoxy. Henderson, The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy, Neo-Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns, SUNY Press 1998

Orthodox Christianity
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Adherence to the Nicene Creed is a common test of orthodoxy in Christianity

80.
Evangelical
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Its origins are usually traced back to English Methodism, the Moravian Church, and German Lutheran Pietism. While all these phenomena contributed greatly, John Wesley and other early Methodists were at the root of sparking this new movement during the First Great Awakening, today, Evangelicals are found across many Protestant branches, as well as in various denominations not subsumed to a specific branch. Among leaders and major figures of the Evangelical Protestant movement were John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Billy Graham, Harold John Ockenga, John Stott and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The movement gained momentum during the 18th and 19th centuries with the Great Awakenings in the United Kingdom. The Americas, Africa, and Asia are home to the majority of Evangelicals, United States has the largest concentration of Evangelicals in the world, its community forms a quarter of the population, is politically important and based mostly in the Bible Belt. In the United Kingdom, Evangelicals are mostly represented in the Methodist Church, Baptist communities, Evangelicalism, a major part of popular Protestantism, is among the most dynamic religious movements in the contemporary world, alongside resurgent Islam. While on the rise globally, the world is particularly influenced by its spread. The first published use of evangelical in English came in 1531 when William Tyndale wrote He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth. One year later Sir Thomas More produced the earliest recorded use in reference to a theological distinction when he spoke of Tyndale his evangelical brother Barns, during the Reformation, Protestant theologians embraced the label as referring to gospel truth. Martin Luther referred to the evangelische Kirche to distinguish Protestants from Catholics in the Roman Catholic Church, into the 21st century, evangelical has continued in use as a synonym for Protestant in continental Europe, and elsewhere. This usage is reflected in the names of Protestant denominations such as the Evangelical Church in Germany, the term may also occur outside any religious context to characterize a generic missionary, reforming, or redeeming impulse or purpose. For example, the Times Literary Supplement refers to the rise, one influential definition of Evangelicalism has been proposed by historian David Bebbington. Conversionism, or belief in the necessity of being again, has been a constant theme of Evangelicalism since its beginnings. To Evangelicals, the message of the gospel is justification by faith in Christ and repentance, or turning away. Conversion differentiates the Christian from the non-Christian, and the change in life it leads to is marked by both a rejection of sin and a corresponding personal holiness of life. A conversion experience can be emotional, including grief and sorrow for sin followed by great relief at receiving forgiveness, the stress on conversion is further differentiated from other forms of Protestantism by the belief that an assurance of salvation will accompany conversion. Among Evangelicals, individuals have testified to both sudden and gradual conversions, biblicism is reverence for the Bible and a high regard for biblical authority. All Evangelicals believe in inspiration, though they disagree over how this inspiration should be defined

81.
Pacifism
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Pacifism is opposition to war, militarism, or violence. The word pacifism was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud, a related term is ahimsa, which is a core philosophy in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. While modern connotations are recent, having been explicated since the 19th century, in Christianity, Jesus Christs injunction to love your enemies and asking for forgiveness for his crucifiers for they know not what they do have been interpreted as calling for pacifism. In modern times, interest was revived by Leo Tolstoy in his late works, Mohandas Gandhi propounded the practice of steadfast nonviolent opposition which he called satyagraha, instrumental in its role in the Indian Independence Movement. Its effectiveness served as inspiration to Martin Luther King Jr. James Lawson, James Bevel, Thich Nhat Hanh and many others in the Civil Rights Movement. Pacifism was widely associated with the much publicized image of Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 with the Tank Man, historians of pacifism Peter Brock and Thomas Paul Socknat define pacifism in the sense generally accepted in English-speaking areas as an unconditional rejection of all forms of warfare. Philosopher Jenny Teichman defines the form of pacifism as anti-warism. Teichmans beliefs have been summarized by Brian Orend as, a pacifist rejects war and believes there are no moral grounds which can justify resorting to war. War, for the pacifist, is always wrong, in a sense the philosophy is based on the idea that the ends do not justify the means. Pacifism may be based on moral principles or pragmatism, principled pacifism holds that at some point along the spectrum from war to interpersonal physical violence, such violence becomes morally wrong. Pragmatic pacifism holds that the costs of war and interpersonal violence are so substantial that better ways of resolving disputes must be found, some pacifists follow principles of nonviolence, believing that nonviolent action is morally superior and/or most effective. Some however, support physical violence for emergency defence of self or others, by no means is all nonviolent resistance based on a fundamental rejection of all violence in all circumstances. Many leaders and participants in such movements, while recognizing the importance of using non-violent methods in particular circumstances, have not been absolute pacifists, sometimes, as with the civil rights movements march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, they have called for armed protection. The interconnections between civil resistance and factors of force are numerous and complex, the principle is described as difficult to abide by consistently, due to violence not being available as a tool to aid a person who is being harmed or killed. It is further claimed that such a pacifist could logically argue that violence leads to undesirable results than non-violence. Although all pacifists are opposed to war between states, there have been occasions where pacifists have supported military conflict in the case of civil war or revolution. Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, French pacifist René Gérin urged support for the Spanish Republic, Gérin argued that the Spanish Nationalists were comparable to an individual enemy and the Republics war effort was equivalent to the action of a domestic police force suppressing crime. Advocacy of pacifism can be found far back in history and literature, during the Warring States period, the pacifist Mohist School opposed aggressive war between the feudal states

Pacifism
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Anti-war activist arrested in San Francisco during the March 2003 protests against the war in Iraq
Pacifism
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A peace sign, which is widely associated with pacifism
Pacifism
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Vereshchagin 's painting Apotheosis of War (1871) came to be admired as one of the earliest artistic expressions of pacifism
Pacifism
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Moriori tree carving found in the Chatham Islands.

82.
Tzitzernavank Monastery
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Tzitzernavank, Armenian, Ծիծեռնավանք) is a fifth- to sixth-century Armenian church and former monastery in the Kashatagh Province of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The monastery is within five kilometers of the border of Armenias province of Syunik, historically, Tsitsernavank Monastery is located in Aghahechk, one of the 12 cantons of the historical Armenian province and principality of Syunik. By the 15th century Aghahechk had split into two districts, the half was called Khozhoraberd, the southern half, containing Tzitzernavank, was called Kashatagh. The basilica of Tzitzernavank was believed to contain relics of St. George the Dragon-Slayer, in the past, the monastery belonged to the Tatev diocese and is mentioned as a notable religious center by the 13th century historian Stepanos Orbelian and Bishop Tovma Vanandetsi. The church and its belltower were renovated in 1779, the building inscription in Armenian recording this renovation disappeared in 1967. In the 19th century it served as the church for the adjoining peasant settlement of Zeyva. Zeyvas Armenian inhabitants fled during the 1905 Armenian-Tartar war, never to return, during the Soviet period the village was renamed Gusulu and the church was unused but preserved as an historical monument. The church has no early building inscriptions, however, based on its appearance and its earliest form appears to have been a simple rectangular basilica, without an apse. Based on the style of the doorways in its south wall, however, an alternative thesis exists that dates this stage to the 3rd century AD, and suggests that it was a pre-Christian temple. During the second stage of construction, an apse was added. This may have happened in the 6th century, at this period, the arcades that separated the interior nave from its aisles were probably still constructed of timber. In the third period of construction, stone pillars and arches replaced them, based on the style of their capitals, this occurred sometime between the end of the 6th century and the beginning of the 10th century. The monastery is recognized as a native Armenian example of an oriental basilica, there are two differing opinions on the etymology of the name Tzitzernavank. Some authors state that the name originates from the word tzitzernak which means the bird swallow in Armenian, and point to once abundant swallow nests inside the ruined church of St. George. Others believe that the name derives from the word tzitzern, which in Armenian means little finger - presumably a reference to the relics of St. George that were kept in the church. Donabedian, Dr. L. Durnovo, Dr. A. Yakobson, baratov 3D Model of The Monastery

83.
Catholicos of Armenia
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The Catholicos of All Armenians is the chief bishop and spiritual leader of Armenias national church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the worldwide Armenian diaspora. According to tradition, the apostles Saint Thaddeus and Saint Bartholomew brought Christianity to Armenia in the first century, Saint Gregory the Illuminator became the first Catholicos of All Armenians following the nations adoption of Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD. The seat of the Catholicos, and the spiritual and administrative headquarters of the Armenian Church, is the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the Armenian Apostolic Church is part of the Oriental Orthodox communion that do not subscribe to the Christological formulas of the Council of Chalcedon. The current Catholicos is Karekin II, seats of the Catholicos of Armenians List of Catholicoi of Armenia Holy See of Cilicia List of Armenian Catholicoi of Cilicia Official site of The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin

84.
Saint Narses
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There was also a Caucasian Albanian Catholicos Nerses I, who ruled in 689–706, and a Patriarch Nerses I of Constantinople, who ruled in 1704. Nerses I the Great was an Armenian Catholicos who lived in the fourth century and he was the son of Atanagenes and his mother was the Arsacid Princess Bambish, a sister of King Tigranes VII and a daughter of King Khosrov III. His paternal grandfather was St. Husik I whose paternal grandfather was Saint Gregory the Illuminator, Nerses spent his youth in Caesarea where he married a Mamikonian Princess called Sanducht. Sanducht bore Nerses a son called Sahak, who would become another Catholicos in Armenia, after the death of his wife, he was appointed sword-bearer to King Arsaces II. A few years later, having entered the state, he was elected Catholicos in 353. His patriarchate marks a new era in Armenian history, until that point, the Church had been more or less identified with the royal family and the nobles, Nerses brought it into closer connection with the people. At the Council of Ashtishat he promulgated numerous laws on marriage, fast days and he built schools and hospitals, and sent monks throughout the land to preach the Gospel. Nerses held a synod at Ashtishat that, among other things, forbade people to marry their first cousin and forbade mutilation, some of these reforms drew upon him the kings displeasure, and he was exiled, supposedly to Edessa. It was probably at some point during the part of Arshaks reign that Nerses went to Constantinople to ensure the emperors support of Armenia against the Persians. According to Pawstos Buzandacis account Roman emperor Valens became outraged at Nerses condemning his following of the teachings of Arius, while Nerses was in exile in Xad he was the leader of the church in Armenia. Upon the accession of pro-Arian King Papas he returned to his see, Papas proved a dissolute and unworthy ruler and Nerses forbade him entrance to the church. Under the pretence of seeking reconciliation, Papas invited Nerses to his table, gregorids This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles, ed. article name needed

Saint Narses
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Saint Nerses

85.
Deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia
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The deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia took place as an act of forced resettlement and ethnic cleansing throughout the 20th century. Prior to the October Revolution, Azerbaijanis had made up 43 percent of the population of Yerevan, the Tartar population endured a process of forced migration from the territory of the Democratic Republic of Armenia and later in the Armenian SSR several times during the 20th century. Under Stalins policies, approximately 100,000 Azerbaijanis were deported from the Armenian SSR in 1948 and their houses were subsequently inhabited by Armenian repatriates who arrived in the Soviet Union from abroad. The British command, which had its own political objectives didn’t allow Andranik to extend his activity to Karabakh, Andranik brought 30,000 Armenian refugees from Eastern Anatolia, mainly from Mush and Bitlis. According to statistical data from Caucasian Ethnographical Collection of Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the relocation of the Azerbaijani population during the Stalinist era happened after the establishment of the Armenian SSR. According to the First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union of 1926, according to All-Union census of 1939,130,896 Azerbaijanis lived in Armenian SSR. Results of All-Union census of 1959 show that this decreased to 107,748, although in the rate of natality. In 1945 the Soviet Union presented a claim to Turkish territories of Kars. This confrontation in the relations of both lasted until Stalin’s death. These policies continued until 1953, and Stalin’s decisions became the significant step of offering Armenians living in countries to move to Soviet Armenia. The Armenian SSR was located in an advantageous military-geographical territory at the frontier of Turkey within the context of influencing Turkey. Cleansing Armenia of the Azerbaijani Muslims with the purpose of strengthening Armenia’s stronghold was one of the plans of the Soviet regime, one clauses of the resolution stated, Details of resettlement were defined in the Soviet Union’s Council of Ministers’ Resolution #754. The part of kolkhoz’s moveable property was assigned and gratuitous transportation of property to the new settlement was provided for the deported. Price of moveable property abandoned in Armenia was paid for in kolkhozs at places of new settlement of Azerbaijanis, some benefits were given to migrants and at the same time permanent grants of 1000 rubles were given out per head of family and 300 rubles per each member of family. At the same time he gave consent for repatriation of 90,000 Armenians to the settlements of the newly deported Azerbaijanis, numerous reports were received of Azeris stating their unwillingness to leave the Armenian SSR. The Armenian SSR Interior Ministry reported in 1948 that some Azerbaijanis would even visit cemeteries, on the other hand, some groups decided it was better to leave as in the case of a war with Turkey, they were convinced they would be massacred by Armenians. According to Thomas de Waal, the Azeris of Armenia once again fell victims to the Armenian–Turkish question, besides Azerbaijanis, representatives of other ethnicities lived in Armenia, Russians, Kurds, Ukrainians, Greeks and other ethnic minorities. According to census of 1979, Azerbaijanis were the largest minority in Armenia making up 5, the expulsion of Azerbaijanis en masse by Armenian extremists started in 1987 from district of Kafan

Deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia
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Resettlement ticket of an Azerbaijani person from Armenian SSR (from Chobankand, Zangibasar district)
Deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia
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Stalin signed decree ordering deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenian SSR and replacement of foreign Armenians in their houses in December 23, 1947

86.
Gyumri
–
Gyumri is the second largest city in Armenia and the capital of the Shirak Province in the northwestern part of the country. By the end of the 19th century, when the city was known as Alexandropol and it was renamed to Leninakan during the Soviet period. The citys population grew above 200,000 prior to the 1988 Spitak earthquake, as of the 2011 census, the city had a population of 121,976, down from 150,917 reported at the 2001 census. Archaeological excavations conducted throughout the Soviet period have shown that the area of modern-day Gyumri has been populated since at least the third millennium BC, the area was mentioned as Kumayri in the historic Urartian inscriptions dating back to the 8th century BC. In 720 BC, the Cimmerians conquered the region and probably founded the Kumayri settlement, historians believe that Xenophon passed through Kumayri during his return to the Black Sea, a journey immortalized in his Anabasis. At the decline of the Urartu Kingdom by the half of the 6th century BC. However, at the beginning of the 5th century BC, Kumayri became part of the Satrapy of Armenia under the rule of the Orontids. An alternative theory suggests that Kumayri has been formed as a settlement in the late 5th century BC, ca.401 BC. Later in 331 BC, the territory was included in the Ayrarat province of Ancient Armenian Kingdom as part of the Shirak canton. Between 190 BC and 1 AD Kumayri was under the rule of the Artaxiad dynasty of Armenia, during the 1st century AD, Shirak was granted to the Kamsarakan family, who ruled over Kumayri during the Arsacid Kingdom of Armenia. In 658 AD, at the height of the Arab Islamic invasions, Kumayri was a significant and quite-developed urban settlement during the Middle Ages. According to the Armenian scholar Ghevond the Historian, the town was a centre of the Armenian rebellion led by Artavazd Mamikonian against the Islamic Arab Caliphate, after 2 centuries of Islamic rule over Armenia, the Bagratids declared independence in 885 establishing the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia. Kumayri entered e new era of growth and progress, particularly when the city of Ani became the capital of the kingdom in 961. By the second half of the 10th century, Kumayri was under the influence of the Armenian Pahlavuni family, the Pahlavunis had a great contribution in the progress of Shirak with the foundation of many fortresses, monastic complexes, educational institutions, etc. After the fall of Armenia to the Byzantine Empire in 1045, during the Zakarid rule, the Eaastern Armenian territories, mainly Lori and Shirak, entered into a new period of growth and stability, becoming a trade centre between the east and the west. After the Mongols captured Ani in 1236, Armenia turned into a Mongol protectorate as part of the Ilkhanate, and the Zakarids became vassals to the Mongols. After the fall of the Ilkhanate in the century, the Zakarid princes ruled over Lori, Shirak. By the last quarter of the 14th century, the Ag Qoyunlu Sunni Oghuz Turkic tribe took over Armenia, in 1400, Timur invaded Armenia and Georgia, and captured more than 60,000 of the survived local people as slaves

87.
Spitak earthquake
–
The 1988 Armenian earthquake, also known as the Spitak earthquake occurred in the northern region of Armenia on December 7 at 11,41 local time. The earthquake measured 6.8 on the surface wave magnitude scale and had a maximum perceived intensity of X on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale. The region that the earthquake occurred is vulnerable to occasional large, activity in the area is associated with tectonic plate boundary interaction and the source of the event was a slip of a thrust fault just to the north of Spitak. The cities of Spitak, Leninakan, and Kirovakan were greatly affected with large losses of life and devastating effects to buildings, a number of the smaller outlying villages away from the larger population centers were also severely affected. In support of the effort, recording artists united to produce several music-related contributions for the victims of the quake. A song was produced by a duo of French composers and a album that featured songs donated by mainstream rock bands was released from the Rock Aid Armenia effort by the British music industry. Beginning with late 1987 the Caucasus region was experiencing a surge in political turmoil with large, the unrest and the opposition movement began in September 1988 with negotiations between the Karabakh Committee and Gorbachev taking place throughout most of 1989. The source of the event was a fault rupture 40 kilometers south of the Caucasus Mountains, a range that has been produced by the convergence of the Arabian. The range is situated along an active seismic belt that stretches from the Alps in southern Europe to the Himalayas in Asia, the seismicity along this belt is marked by frequent major earthquakes from the Aegean Sea, through Turkey and Iran, and into Afghanistan. Mount Ararat, a 5,137 m dormant volcano, lies 100 kilometers to the south of the epicenter in Turkey. The earthquake occurred along a known 60 km thrust fault striking parallel to the Caucasus range, during the earthquake, the northeast-facing side of the Spitak section rode up and over the southwest-facing side. The mainshock produced surface rupture and propagated to the west with a separate strike-slip sub-event occurring two seconds later that propagated to the southeast, going westward the fault split into two branches, a north-dipping reverse fault and a right slip fault, but neither produced surface rupture. A total of five sub-events occurred in the first eleven seconds, some of the strongest shaking occurred in industrial areas with chemical and food processing plants, electrical substations, and power plants. It was reopened in 1995 amid criticism of lack of training, political instability in the Caucasus region, at that time the International Atomic Energy Agencys assistant director general Morris Rosen said of the situation. You would never build a plant in that area, thats for sure, buildings that didnt collapse featured well-maintained masonry and skeletal components that were joined together adequately in a way that allowed for the building to resist seismic waves. Most bridges and tunnels and other public infrastructure withstood the earthquake, most collapsed, killing two-thirds of the doctors, destroying equipment and medicine, and reducing the capacity to handle the critical medical needs in the region. The Soviet news media and government officials began to discuss the apparent substandard construction styles that had caused so many of Armenias buildings to collapse. The official communist party newspaper Pravda said that construction, like other issues of neglect in the Soviet system

88.
The Economist
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The Economist is an English-language weekly magazine-format newspaper owned by the Economist Group and edited at offices in London. Continuous publication began under its founder, James Wilson, in September 1843, in 2015 its average weekly circulation was a little over 1.5 million, about half of which were sold in the United States. The publication belongs to the Economist Group and it is 50% owned by the English branch of the Rothschild family and by the Agnelli family through its holding company Exor. The remaining 50% is held by investors including the editors. The Rothschilds and the Agnellis are represented on the board of directors, a board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without its permission. Although The Economist has an emphasis and scope, about two-thirds of the 75 staff journalists are based in the London borough of Westminster. For the year to March 2016 the Economist Group declared operating profit of £61m, previous major shareholders include Pearson PLC. The Economist takes a stance of classical and economic liberalism which is supportive of free trade, globalisation, free immigration. The publication has described itself as a product of the Caledonian liberalism of Adam Smith and it targets highly educated readers and claims an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers. The publications CEO described this recent global change, which was first noticed in the 1990s and accelerated in the beginning of the 21st century, on the contents page of each issue, The Economists mission statement is written in italics. The Economist was founded by the British businessman and banker James Wilson in 1843, to advance the repeal of the Corn Laws, articles relating to some practical, commercial, agricultural, or foreign topic of passing interest, such as foreign treaties. An article on the principles of political economy, applied to practical experience, covering the laws related to prices, wages, rent, exchange, revenue. Parliamentary reports, with focus on commerce, agriculture and free trade. Reports and accounts of popular movements advocating free trade, general news from the Court of St. Jamess, the Metropolis, the Provinces, Scotland, and Ireland. Law reports, confined chiefly to areas important to commerce, manufacturing, books, confined chiefly, but not so exclusively, to commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture, and including all treatises on political economy, finance, or taxation. A commercial gazette, with prices and statistics of the week, correspondence and inquiries from the news magazines readers. It has long respected as one of the most competent. Its logo was designed in 1959 by Reynolds Stone, in January 2012 The Economist launched a new weekly section devoted exclusively to China, the first new country section since the introduction of a section about the United States in 1942

The Economist
–
Walter Bagehot, one of the early Editors of The Economist
The Economist
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Front page of The Economist, on 16 May 1846
The Economist
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The Economist Building, St James's Street, by Alison and Peter Smithson

89.
Lachin
–
Lachin or Berdzor, formerly Abdallyar, Datschin) is a town internationally recognized de jure as part of Azerbaijan, but currently controlled by the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Since 1992 the area has been under the control of the NKR, which has renamed the town Berdzor, the government of Azerbaijan considers it to be the regional center of its Lachin Rayon. The town and its surrounding region serve as the strategic Lachin corridor connecting the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic with Armenia and it was originally known as Abdalyar or Abdallyar. It was granted town status in 1923 and renamed Lachin in 1926, the town of Lachin on July 7,1923 became the administrative center of Kurdistansky Uyezd, often known as Red Kurdistan, before it was moved to Shusha. It was dissolved on April 8,1929, Kurdish schools, on May 15,1992, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army took control of the first land-corridor to Armenia. Previously, on May 13,1992 Turkey threatened Armenia that, It would intervene militarily if Shusha, Russia responded by signing a military agreement with Armenia, pledging military aid if its security was threatened. On May 20,1992, Turkey reassured Russia that it would not intervene militarily, thus, after three years of blockade, a land bridge linking the Republic of Armenia with the territory of Nagorno Karabakh was established. In the fall of 1992, Azerbaijani forces tried to control over Lachin. All of Lachins Azerbaijani and Kurdish population fled as a result of the fall of the region to ethnic Armenian forces, the town is scenically built on the side of a mountain on the left bank of Hakari River. Lachin town and the surrounding rayon were the location of fighting during the 1990-1994 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Lachin is the most important town under Armenian control because of the Lachin corridor, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group co-chairs noted that Lachin has been treated as a separate case in previous negotiations. This is because Lachin is Nagorno Karabakhs humanitarian and security corridor, without it, Nagorno-Karabakh would remain an isolated enclave. The Lachin corridor and the Kelbajar district have been at the center of Armenian demands during the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks with Azerbaijan, on 16 June 2015 European Court of Human Rights passed a judgement in the case of ″Chiragov and Others v. The Court confirmed that Armenia exercised effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories, Berdzor is the capital of Kashatagh Region. Berdzor is twinned with, Highland, California Lachin corridor Е, pictures of Lachin Demographic Crisis in Lachin More information about Lachin from Armeniapedia. com Lachin

Lachin
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Berdzor

90.
Qubadli District
–
Qubadli is a rayon of Azerbaijan. The region has been under the control of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, according to the last Soviet census of 1989, population was 28,110. According to undated Azerbaijani data, the population was 34,100, state Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan Republic

Qubadli District

91.
Elmar Mammadyarov
–
Elmar Mammadyarov Maharram oglu, born July 2, 1960) is an Azerbaijani diplomat who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan since 2004. Mammadyarov speaks Russian, English, Azerbaijani, and Turkish, Mammadyarov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 2,1960. He studied at the School of International Relations and International Law of the Kiev State University in 1977-1982 and he continued his education at the Diplomatic Academy of the MFA of USSR in 1988-1991 and obtained a PhD in History. In 1989-1990 Mammadyarov was a scholar at the Center for Foreign Policy Development of the Brown University. Mammadyarov started his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijani SSR in 1982. He served there as second and first secretary until 1988, in 1991-1992 he was the Director of the State Protocol Division. In 1992-1995, Mammadyarov worked in the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the United Nations in New York, upon completion of his duties he returned to Baku and in 1995-1998 was the deputy director of the Department of International Organizations in the Ministry. In 1998-2003 he served as counselor at the Embassy of Azerbaijan to the United States, in 2003 Mammadyarov was appointed as Ambassador to Italy. Since April 2,2004 he is Minister of Foreign Affairs

Elmar Mammadyarov
–
Elmar Mammadyarov
Elmar Mammadyarov
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Elmar Mammadyarov and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signing a US-Azerbaijan Memorandum of Understanding on Energy Security Cooperation
Elmar Mammadyarov
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President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama pose for a photo during a reception at the Metropolitan Museum in New York with Elmar Mammadyarov.

92.
Janapar
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Janapar is a marked trail through mountains, valleys and villages of Nagorno-Karabakh. The trail passes by monasteries and fortresses along its route, the trail is broken into day hikes, taking hikers to a different village each night. Hikers can either stay with a family or set up camp nearby. The paths have existed for centuries, but now are marked specifically for hikers, there are also hot springs in Zuar, a geyser near Karvachar city and other springs and waterfalls along the way. All of the Janapar Trail can be followed using the Viewranger app, the entire southern portion of the route from Hadrut to Stepanakert and on to Kolatak is marked with blue painted blazes. North of Kolatak is not marked and hikers must rely on the Viewranger app, or a GPS with the downloaded tracks, or the topographic maps made available on the Janapar website. The symbol of the trail is an outline of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, with five circles of increasing size on top, which take on the appearance of a footprint

93.
Education in the Soviet Union
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Education in the Soviet Union was organized in a highly centralized government-run system. It featured total access to primary and middle education for all citizens and guaranteed post-education employment for students of institutions of higher, with Lenins takeover in 1917, Soviet ideology began to permeate the educational system. While education in the Soviet Union usually varied throughout the course of its due to ideological changes, also. Often the official stance on education and its institutions differed significantly from what actually occurred, in Imperial Russia, according to the 1897 Population Census, literate people made up 28.4 percent of the population. Literacy levels of women were a mere 13%, Soviet education in 1930s–1950s was inflexible and suppressive. Research and education, in all subjects but especially in the sciences, was dominated by Marxist-Leninist ideology. Such domination led to abolition of whole academic disciplines such as genetics, scholars were purged as they were proclaimed bourgeois and non-Marxist during that period. Most of the branches were rehabilitated later in Soviet history, in the 1960s–1990s. In addition, many textbooks - such as history ones - were full of ideology and propaganda, the educational systems ideological pressure continued, but in the 1980s, the governments more open policies influenced changes that made the system more flexible. Shortly before the Soviet Union collapsed, schools no longer had to teach subjects from the Marxist-Leninist perspective at all, another aspect of the inflexibility was the high rate at which pupils were held back and required to repeat a year of school. In the early 1950s, typically 8–10% of pupils in elementary grades were held back a year and this was partly attributable to the pedagogical style of teachers, and partly to the fact that many of these children had disabilities that impeded their performance. In the latter 1950s, however, the Ministry of Education began to promote the creation of a variety of special schools for children with physical or mental handicaps. Once those children were out of the mainstream schools, and once teachers began to be held accountable for the repeat rates of their pupils. By the mid-1960s the repeat rates in the primary schools declined to about 2%. The number of enrolled in special schools grew fivefold between 1960 and 1980. However, the availability of special schools varied greatly from one republic to another. On a per capita basis, such schools were most available in the Baltic republics. This difference probably had more to do with the availability of resources than with the relative need for the services by children in the two regions, in the autumn of 1918 the Statutniihge of the Uniform Labour School was issued

94.
Tuff
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Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is compacted into a rock in a process called consolidation. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly used as construction material. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered tuffaceous, Tuff is a relatively soft rock, so it has been used for construction since ancient times. Since it is common in Italy the Romans used it often for construction, the Rapa Nui people used it to make most of the moai statues in Easter Island. Tuff can be classified as either sedimentary or igneous rocks and they are usually studied in the context of igneous petrology, although they are sometimes described using sedimentological terms. The material that is expelled in a volcanic eruption can be classified into three types, Volcanic gases, a mixture mostly of water vapour, carbon dioxide. Lava, the name of magma when it emerges and flows over the surface, and tephra, chunks of solid material of all shapes and sizes ejected and thrown through the air. Tephra is made when magma inside the volcano is blown apart by the expansion of hot volcanic gases. It is common for magma to explode as the gas dissolved in it comes out of solution as the pressure decreases when it flows to the surface and these violent explosions produce solid chunks of material that can then fly from the volcano. When these chunks are smaller than 2 mm in diameter they are called volcanic ash and it is made of small, slaggy pieces of lava and rock that have been tossed into the air by outbursts of steam and other gases. Among the loose beds of ash that cover the slopes of many volcanoes, in addition to true ashes of the kind described above, there are lumps of the old lavas and tuffs forming the walls of the crater, etc. In some great volcanic explosions nothing but materials of the kind were emitted. The ashes vary in size from large blocks twenty feet or more in diameter to the minutest impalpable dust, the large masses are called volcanic bombs, they have mostly a rounded, elliptical or pear-shaped form owing to rotation in the air before they solidified. Many of them have ribbed or nodular surfaces, and sometimes they have a crust intersected by many cracks like the surface of a loaf of bread, any ash in which they are very abundant is called an agglomerate. But many volcanoes stand near the sea, and the ashes cast out by them are mingled with the sediments that are gathering at the bottom of the waters, in this way ashy muds or sands or even in some cases ashy limestones are being formed. As a matter of fact most of the found in the older formations contain admixtures of clay, sand, and sometimes fossil shells. The showers of ashes often follow one another after longer or shorter intervals, the coarsest materials or agglomerates show this least distinctly, in the fine beds it is often developed in great perfection

95.
Coat of arms of Nagorno-Karabakh
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The emblem of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic consists of an eagle wearing an ornamented crown. On the chest of the eagle is a shield with a panorama of a mountain range, over this are the two stone heads of Granny and Gramps from the We Are Our Mountains monument in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. The eagles feet clutch various agricultural products including wheat and grapes, the outer rim is made up of a golden circular ribbon bearing inscription Լեռնային Ղարաբաղի Հանրապետություն-Արցախ in Eastern Armenian. This description is due to Željko Heimer of the Flags of the World website, coat of arms of Armenia Flag of Nagorno-Karabakh Artsakh / Nagorno-Karabakh at Flags of the World

Coat of arms of Nagorno-Karabakh
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Coat of arms of Nagorno-Karabakh

96.
Association football
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Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies making it the worlds most popular sport, the game is played on a rectangular field with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by getting the ball into the opposing goal, players are not allowed to touch the ball with their hands or arms while it is in play, unless they are goalkeepers. Other players mainly use their feet to strike or pass the ball, the team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is level at the end of the game, the Laws of the Game were originally codified in England by The Football Association in 1863. Association football is governed internationally by the International Federation of Association Football, the first written reference to the inflated ball used in the game was in the mid-14th century, Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the word soccer was split off in 1863, according to Partha Mazumdar, the term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as an Oxford -er abbreviation of the word association. Within the English-speaking world, association football is now usually called football in the United Kingdom and mainly soccer in Canada and the United States. People in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand use either or both terms, although national associations in Australia and New Zealand now primarily use football for the formal name. According to FIFA, the Chinese competitive game cuju is the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence, cuju players could use any part of the body apart from hands and the intent was kicking a ball through an opening into a net. It was remarkably similar to football, though similarities to rugby occurred. During the Han Dynasty, cuju games were standardised and rules were established, phaininda and episkyros were Greek ball games. An image of an episkyros player depicted in low relief on a vase at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens appears on the UEFA European Championship Cup, athenaeus, writing in 228 AD, referenced the Roman ball game harpastum. Phaininda, episkyros and harpastum were played involving hands and violence and they all appear to have resembled rugby football, wrestling and volleyball more than what is recognizable as modern football. As with pre-codified mob football, the antecedent of all football codes. Non-competitive games included kemari in Japan, chuk-guk in Korea and woggabaliri in Australia, Association football in itself does not have a classical history. Notwithstanding any similarities to other games played around the world FIFA have recognised that no historical connection exists with any game played in antiquity outside Europe. The modern rules of football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played in the public schools of England

Association football
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The attacking player (No. 10) attempts to kick the ball beyond the opposing team's goalkeeper and between the goalposts and beneath the crossbar to score a goal
Association football
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Children playing cuju in Song dynasty China
Association football
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Ebenezer Cobb Morley, who is regarded as the "father of football"
Association football
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A women's international match between the United States and Germany

97.
Abkhazia national football team
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The Abkhazia National Football Team, is the team representing the partially recognised state of Abkhazia. They are not affiliated with FIFA or UEFA, and therefore compete for the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA European Championships. They competed at the first ConIFA World Football Cup in 2014 finishing 8th overall and they hosted and won the second ConIFA World Football Cup in 2016. Abkhazia announced their squad for ConIFA World Cup 2016 on 29 May, ConIFA World Football Cup Winners,2016

Abkhazia national football team
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Abkhazia

98.
Capture of Shushi
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It was named Wedding in the Mountains by the Armenian commandership. The seizure of the town proved decisive, however, some of the shelling was, according to the accounts of former residents, either indiscriminate or intentionally aimed at civilian targets. In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh had been an autonomous oblast for over seventy years inside the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR. Following its governments decision to secede from Azerbaijan and unify with Armenia, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Armenians and Azeris vied to take control of Karabakh with full-scale battles in the winter of 1992. By then, the enclave had declared its independence and set up an unrecognized, though self-functioning, a large scale population shift had also been in effect since the conflict began, with most of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan fleeing to Armenia and the Azerbaijanis in Armenia to Azerbaijan. The battle was preceded by the capture of the town. With the loss of Khojaly, Azeri commanders concentrated the rest of their firepower upon Stepanakert, on 26 January 1992 the Azerbaijani forces stationed in Shusha encircled and attacked nearby Armenian village Karintak attempting to capture it. This operation was conducted by Azerbaijan’s then defence minister Tajedin Mekhtiev and was supposed to prepare ground for future attack on Stapanakert, the operation failed as the villagers and the Armenian fighters strongly retaliated in self-defense. Mekhtiev was ambushed and up to seventy Azeri soldiers died, after this debacle, Mekhtiev left Shusha and was fired as defence minister. The Armenians to date celebrate the self-defence of Karintak as one of their early, Shusha sits on a mountaintop overlooking the NKRs highly populated capital, Stepanakert, from an elevation of 600m. An old fortress with walls, the town is five kilometers to the south of Stepanakert. From a geographical standpoint Shusha was well-suited for Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert, the main type of artillery used in the bombardment, which began on January 10,1992, was the Soviet-made BM-21 GRAD multiple rocket launcher, which was capable of firing 40 rockets in one volley. The GRAD launcher was similar to the World War II-era Katyusha in that it did not have a missile system. Essentially, the GRAD is designed to deliver anti-personnel devastation on an open battlefield, Shusha was the main fire point from where Stepanakert was assaulted. By one tally recorded in early April, a total of 157 rockets had landed on the city in a single day, by early 1992 the bombing intensified. In a course of one week the city was bombed with over 1,000 shells, in an article that appeared in TIME in April 1992, it was noted that scarcely a single building escaped damage in Stepanakert. In addition to the shelling, the Azeri military also launched air raids, while they were staved off numerous times, the citys leaders complained that military action had to be taken to relieve it from the continuous bombardment. On April 27, the military plans were approved to move in

Capture of Shushi
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Gagik Avsharyan's restored T-72 tank stands as a memorial commemorating the capture of Shusha.
Capture of Shushi
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The road to leading to Shusha where the encounter between Avsharyan's and Agarunov's tanks took place.

99.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker

International Standard Book Number
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A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an EAN-13 bar code

100.
REGNUM News Agency
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REGNUM News Agency is a Russian non-governmental, nationwide online news service disseminating news from Russia and abroad from its own correspondents, affiliate agencies and partners. REGNUM covers events in all regions of Russia as well as neighboring countries in Europe, Central Asia, REGNUM was founded on July 22,2002, however the REGNUM family of agencies started functioning on June 19,1999. REGNUM press centers are located in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Pskov, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Barnaul, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Kaluga, REGNUM is licensed as mass media service, registration certificate No. El 77-6430 issued on August 6,2002, REGNUM is a registered trademark, certificate No.262482. In an interview by editor-in-chief of Regnum, Vigen Akopyan to the Russian portal gorod, although Mr. Akopyan did not say what country he had in mind, Russian journalists figured out it was Estonia. The system of REGNUM News Agency includes regional bureaus in the Russian territory and abroad, REGNUM News Agency has a correspondent network in Russia. According to TNS Gallup Media survey of Moscow audience of Russian online news services, managers, in November–December 2006, MASMI-Russia Company conducted the 11th survey of Runet audience Online Monitor. REGNUM newsline is read more by managers, official website, English REGNUM-VolgaInform REGNUM-Baltica REGNUM-Arkhangelskiye Novosti REGNUM-MurmanNews REGNUM-MariNews SeverInform REGNUM-Altai REGNUM-Primorie

REGNUM News Agency
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REGNUM News Agency logo

101.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network